Showgirl

Or perhaps Nina did it on purpose just to get out of going to a show tomorrow. The last time I entered her for one, she dashed off in the fields and came back ripped to shreds. Had to have 3 staples in one front leg and 1 in the other. The vets love me! The insurers don't. If I'm not in for more than a fortnight, the vets start dusting off the redundancy plans.

The things Nina will do to get a bit of attention

Poor Nina does occasionally tend to miss out on the attention, what with Satchmo being a hoodie and Max flirting (he's sat on my lap as I write). Not in the last few days though. Little tomboy Nina (aka Miss Bean) has been in the wars yet again (third time in 12 months). This time I got home from an overnight trip to find a horribly deep cut about three inches from her tail. Looks for all the world as though she's been stabbed with a chisel. Off to the vet yesterday morning, general anaesthetic, took 20 minutes to clean out (ooh), and she now has a very unattractive bald patch and 7 staples. Poor wee lassie. In usual style after something like this, she needed to come home and sleep, but just wandered pathetically around with her tail clamped down, wobbling slightly, and couldn't settle till bedtime. What goes on in their doggie heads? Does she think if she falls asleep she'll wake up back at the vet's? The nurse didn't want to let me have her back; she was totally enamoured. Apparently, it usually takes 2 to remove a line from a dog's wrist, but Nina just sat and gave paw. My little beauty. A bit better this morning; she stood up and put her tail up and wagged briefly when I got up. Back in bed now, but then she never was a morning girl.

Do I want Satch slow roasted or barbied?

Well, this week's little adventure is another incident with a cable. While the builder was away buying some bits and pieces (technical building term, that) for the pond, Satchmo was managing to grab the cabling from the new pond pump, drag the pump up out of 5 ft of water and over the edge and leave it in the middle of the drive. First thing I knew was getting home from work and finding a note saying, 'How do you want your dog cooked ... slow roast or barbie?'

Got home today to find he has dried mud on him. Don't even want to think what he's been doing. Will no doubt discover it tomorrow morning. Must ask his mother to chastise him a bit more, but to her he can do no wrong.

Satch the electrician and gardener

Satch has recently: pulled up all the cabling for the outside lights so I had to pay the gardener to dig new trenches for them; pulled up another bit and bitten through it (fortunately - or not - the power was off so no 12v shock); bitten a chunk out of the TV aerial; demolished 2 honeysuckles; stolen various of the builder's tools and chewed the handles; broken an eggcup (actually that might have been Max). Still love him, so he must have quite some boyish charm...

Happy Easter

Dogs are happy. Nina's season is over, we're all together. We even sat together in front of a log fire yesterday. I've been home most of the time as it's the Easter break, and there have even been some decent walks. Doggie heaven. Pretty much Susie heaven too.

Got to go - Satch making it quite clear he wants his dinner.

Hormone hell

Hormone hell in this house recently. Nina's in season, so she's stir-crazy from being kept indoors. She's on a diet of Tic-Tacs to mask the attraction to Max and Satch. It has worked, in that we didn't have a night when Max barks all night, which we usually do. He barked a lot, mind, and nearly drove me mad, but at least I didn't have to sleep on the breakfast room table, whch I had to do last season. Why does he quieten down when I'm in the room? I don't even want to go there!

Satch is funny. He's not been allowed to cross paths with his mum much either, but when he does, he just thinks playing with mum is so, so exciting. He wags his tail faster than I've ever seen before, play bows and jumps around, but clearly has no idea why he's finding her particularly exciting right now. I'm sure he'd work it out if they were together for long, though, so they've definitely been kept apart.

Things are finally starting to calm down. They're all together as I type this - Max sat on my lap; situation normal. I always feel as though I've got him back from a journey when he starts to be able to turn attention to me again after a week or so of total monomania with Nina. Maybe he'll even start eating again soon. He won't touch dog food - tinned or dried - for about 10 days. Predictably, he doesn't seem to think sausages and dog biscuits (fed by hand, of course) count as food, so that's what he's been living on, but he's still skinny.

Satchmo wins again

Well, we're doing well at Open shows. On 20 Feb at Bristol & District, Satchmo got Best Puppy, Reserve Best of Breed and then Best Puppy in the Working Group. V v proud of him. Needless to say, he was really hard work, but if you get it right with him, he looks fabulous, just poised and quivering.