Winter, fifteen years ago

 

Winter, fifteen years ago

Frodo the Faller

We haven’t had an appreciable snowfall in Berkshire for many years, Occasionally, we have had enough to shut the schools, for health and safety reasons, whereupon families dig out their sledges and skis and head for the nearest hills. It’s bonkers!

 Jenna 

It used to be the case that snow fell and covered everything in a thick blanket of deadening white. Crunching through the snow was almost musical, boots squeaking against the crystals. The air burnt one’s nose and throat with cold, and exposed ears tingled. After the snow, the ground remained hard for months in the winter, resounding like a huge drum to footfalls.

It’s always a pleasure to walk with dogs, and see their enthusiasm as they read the landscape. Snow brings fresh excitement and smells. They plunge and leap and nose the unfamiliar white stuff, sometimes eating a mouthful, or finding small mammals underneath, which skitter away as fast as they can from questing muzzles.

Puppy Gus, Jenna, Frodo the Faller, Janice, Buddy Liver Spots, January 2010

Fifteen years ago in January, we had a substantial snowfall. We had at that time two Dalmatians, Buddy Liver Spots, who was blind by then, following an almost fatal attack of meningitis, and Frodo the Faller, and two black Labradors, Jenna and her half-brother, puppy Gus. We kept Buddy on a long lead, as he would otherwise set off purposefully at speed in the wrong direction. The lead allowed him a measure of independence if he wanted it, but he didn’t stray far.

How many dogs can you see?

There are two - Jenna on the left and puppy Gus almost completely covered!

Buddy Liver Spots and puppy Gus

Frodo the Faller and Buddy Liver Spots

They had such fun in the snow!

This year, we have had one paltry snow shower, with heavy frosts most mornings recently, and some fog. I’m not wishing for terrible weather conditions, but it does seem that there is a developing trend for the seasons to become more or less bland. I could live to regret my words!

Frodo the Faller

Dogs and chocolate

 

Dogs and chocolate

                            Whisky, gently taking part of a KitKat from my mouth.                         That was the year we had the same colour hair/fur, Whisky and  I, though hers was natural.

In the years before anyone realised that dogs and chocolate were a dangerous combination, we used to hang chocolate decorations on the Christmas tree.

We came home one day to find that all the chocolate had been comprehensively sucked out of the foil wrappings and our Labrador, Whisky, was looking rather pleased with herself. We knew it wasn’t our small children – they would have taken the decorations off the tree in their entirety. It was our fault. We had trained her with chocolate - she was the gentlest dog.

That was the last year we put chocolate on the tree. Now, of course, chocolate is kept strictly away from dogs and cats.

However, Buddy Liver Spots once ate a complete chocolate cake one Christmas, to our grandchildren’s delight and admiration. He didn’t suffer any ill effects whatsoever and didn’t even look full or guilty. 

Buddy Liver Spots,counter surfing, supported keenly and optimistically by Dominie

Dalmatians are as greedy as Labradors, taller than them, and adept at counter surfing! We became quite used to placing food out of their reach  and have to do it still, since Jellicoe is a Labrador in disguise, always looking for something to eat. However, cats can and do climb, so it's even more of a challenge to keep them away from our comestibles!

Gilbert the Good - a Monty Don dog

 

 Gilbert the Good – a Monty Don dog

I told you a while age that my humans call me a Monty Don dog. Monty Don presents a television programme called Gardeners’ World and there are two dogs that help him, a Golden Retriever and a Yorkshire Terrier. I’m more the size of a retriever – well, I am a Labrador Retriever, so that makes sense.

Anyway, I think I could offer my services to Monty Don if he ever needs a stand-in, say if his dogs are on holiday or something. I like helping in the garden. I even bring things indoors sometimes – the odd branch, perhaps, or I particularly like flower pots and I don’t mind if they’re full or empty.

               I like to stick my nose in when Janice is weeding. Some of the things she pulls up look quite appetising. She pulled up a lot of mint the other day as it was growing everywhere, even in the pond. I like mint. It smells wonderful.

.Barry has been pruning trees and then he does something called ‘graunching’ which is very noisy. I stand well back. I don’t like loud noises.  He uses a big machine and wears things on his ears and over his eyes – I don’t know how he can see what he’s doing! Then he puts all the graunched bits back on the garden. He says the graunched bits are now called ‘mulch’. There’s a lot I don’t understand but I’m willing to learn. I could graunch some branches for him if it would help. He wouldn’t even have to take them off the trees.

I like smelling the flowers. My humans told me that Buddy Liver Spots liked to stand among the plants in the conservatory. He hated getting wet, so never went swimming, and always walked round puddles if he could, but loved to run through long wet grass. He was a Dalmatian, though, and I’m a Labrador, so we are quite different.  My long-ago relatives used to help the fishermen haul in the nets in Newfoundland and I’m sure my distant cousins still do. All Labradors have partially webbed feet so we’re all good swimmers.

I don’t like going into the garden when it’s raining and neither does Roxy, but we love to go walking when it’s wet. Bertie, who came before me, didn’t like going out in the rain when he was a puppy. If he needed a pee he used the cats’ litter tray. I haven’t done that and I’m too big now, anyway. I’m a good boy – I know that because my humans keep telling me I am.

Anyway, back to being a Monty Don dog. I think  I’d enjoy being on television. Lights! Camera! Action!

 

TTFN

Gilbert