Tag Archives: labrador

Lockdown: You’ve Got to Roll With It

The sweet smell of DB No.5

When I was young, quarantine was for dogs.  Specifically, those coming from abroad.  A stay of six months was the norm, although that was increased to twelve months for a while when a dog named Sessan died of rabies in Newmarket.  These days quarantine is for humans – and it seems that dogs are our best way out of it, as it has been accepted that they need two exercises a day while we are allowed just the one. 

Our Labrador Retriever celebrated the first day of lockdown by rolling in something unspeakable during our single excursion from the house.  We have various names for the fields that we walk in, based on previous sightings and happenings.  There is the Old Deer Field, the New Deer Field and the Ducking Pool (where Ella wades and slurps water before coughing like a Covid patient).  There is also the Manor field, and the more descriptively labelled Dead Badger Field.  To that list we can now add the Second Dead Badger Field (DBF II).  We had to keep the dog down wind from us as we strode home.

I was deputed to put on my own Personal Protection Equipment, consisting of rubber gloves and an old anorak, which is not dissimilar to what the Government is supplying “our” NHS, it seems.  The dog herself could not understand the fuss and took it all as her own PPE (Personal Pampering for Ella).  So, after anointing herself with the odour of badger carcass, she now got to choose from a range of shampoos, left over from the Christmas hamper, with which to have a wash and shake.  She went for ‘After the Rain’ (from Arran Aromatics) and she looked gorgeous on it.  Fluffy and happy, smelling like a Highland Hunting party:  notes of heather and gorse, with a hint of rotting cadaver on the finish.

Ella does not see Lockdown as a problem and does not understand the concept of Social Distancing either; wandering out into the lane every time another villager walks past on their daily exercise.  It is not that she is being sociable – she is simply checking their pockets for biscuits. 

Self-isolation is something that the hen has decided she is going to rebel against too, as she escaped from her run twice yesterday and attempted to scratch away at the flowers coming up in the cold spring sunshine.  We sent her packing with a warning – next time it will be a fine, or perhaps a really hard stare from our Prime Minister. 

That should do it.

Back in Isolation
Daffs and stuff
Tulip testing the cold air
Crocuses & Tulip leaves
Perennial seedlings

We’re Gonna Build a Wall…

Onion defences

The major structural engineering works in the garden this spring have revolved around defence – or perhaps I should pronounce that DE-fence.  You see we are facing a crisis, an invasion from migrants.  Migrant cats.  They are sweeping across our borders destroying our bird life and threatening our gardens with their illegal activities, cat nip dealing and violence.  We must repel this invasion.

OK, not an invasion and not a national crisis. And no drug trafficking, but why let the truth get in the way of policy-making? And I guess cats have rights too. And while they are not actually destroying all the bird life they’re probably taking the occasional tit. But what these cats are doing is crapping in my well-tended veg patch. I say cats – it seems to be just the one, with a particularly poor diet, judging by the liquid nature of its deposits. But it leads to one of two consequences. Either I clear it up before tending the garden or, if I am too slow, I have to watch as my Labrador does her morning “poo patrol” and eats whatever feline faeces she can find.

I am not sure which I find more disgusting.

So the solution, to borrow an idea from across the Pond, was to BUILD A WALL. But not just one wall – more like a series of barricades which could be built without recourse to Congress or any other budgetary authorities. So, using some spare chicken wire, canes and fruit netting we have sectioned off the veg beds with instantaneous results: no more cat poo. The dog is disappointed – she still patrols the garden every morning on the off-chance, which reassures me that the cats have not been back. And the netting might even have kept the sparrows from eating the young pea plants too, so it’s a win-win.

Plenty of peas and no poos: success. We’re making the Garden Great Again.  Now, how do we get the cats to pay for the wall…

Rewild at Heart

Catkins

Simon Barnes was speaking on Radio 6 the other Sunday morning, promoting about his book “Rewild Yourself: 23 spellbinding ways to make nature more visible”. He has ideas to get everyone to be more in touch with the natural world around us.  One suggestion – to learn the songs of some common birds which – is exactly what Mrs B and I have been doing recently too.  We reckon we have learnt the great tit, song thrush, robin, blackbird and chaffinch so morning strolls are now very much a multi-sensory affair as we listen out for birdsong.

And bird song is not the only sound that attracts the attention at the moment as the countryside reverberates to the drumming of greater spotted woodpeckers on hollow branches, and the overhead thrum of closely packed wings as a flock of starlings arrives at a nearby tree.  Whenever I see starlings I recall one sixth former from a private girls school asking the question “starling….is that anything to do with that bloke in Russia?” The subsequent incredulity of staff and students said it all: thirteen years of school fees for this? Some serious rewilding needed there.

Mrs B and I were very much at one with our natural environment on the morning dog walk this week.  We listened to the song thrush which regularly sings at the top of the same tree each morning;  we watched flocking starlings and spectated as two deer fled the attentions of our hopelessly out-paced labrador.  Potentially a pet dog might have a negative impact on the local ecology, but those deer will be fitter and healthier for the hundred workout sprint they put in before the dog threw in the towel.  Ella proceeded to flush out a couple of pheasants and then a rabbit but she was no nearer catching them than she was the deer.  She might have had a chance with a grey squirrel – but she did not spot that – and fortunately failed to see the badger bumbling which was oblivious to our presence just fifteen yards away.   We put the dog on the lead:  this was one piece of wildlife she would probably do well to avoid.

Back home the (flocking) starlings were trying to get back into their nest sites under the tiles of the house.  I’ve put wire over some of the holes to stop this so now, as I sit at my desk, all I can hear is them scratching away at the bars trying to get in – like an avian Andy Dufresne in reverse.  I would not mind them being there, but we decided to evict them when they started removing loft insulation and depositing large tufts around the garden.

So no more artificial domesticity for them – I am encouraging them to do their own bit of rewilding.

Stile and oak tree

Sun rise over South Somerset

Eat, Sleep, Retrieve, Repeat

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Gathering the leaves – and possibly the walnuts

Ella is a retriever / lab cross.  There’s probably a posh name for this – like a labtrine or something.  I guess someone somewhere has already thought of crossing the shitsu with a poodle (how much for a shitapoo?) but the key feature of our dog’s genetic inheritance is an overweening desire to bring back anything that is dead.  Like rigor mortis rabbits (with which she nearly took Mrs B off at the knees the other day) or pigeons that have been half eaten by sparrowhawks. But she will also attempt to retrieve stuff which has not actually been shot or died of starvation.

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One pheasant – dead or only resting?

Autumn around these parts brings out the birds and beasts that are trying desperately to fatten up for the winter months.  The pheasant is one such bird trying to fatten up for winter though it has not idea that all it has been successively bred for is to be shot by posh boys in tweed before being collected by their soft-mouthed coated canine companions.  It might explain why they have the aerial ability an early Wright Brothers prototype, making them tempting bait for anything that will chase – thus cutting out the gun-toting middle man.  The other morning our over-keen gun dog disappeared down the lane after a pheasant.  It seems the bird’s idea to try to out-run the labrador failed as two minutes later – much to Mrs B’s dismay – the dog returned with bird in mouth (is that worth two in the bush?) and placed it Mrs B’s feet.

However, as Mrs B tried to move the corpse out of the road, the pheasant jumped up and ran into the ditch.  Miracle?  Maybe.  The chances are that the Lazarus-like recovery of the bird was just the “headless chicken” response of a bird that was pretty much dead.  But Mrs B retains the notion that the pheasant is still out there wandering the hedges and ditches.  Aaaah.

Elsewhere Ella has less success chasing the squirrels that pilfer the walnuts.  Looking from the Labrador’s eye view, how hard can it be?  Squirrels are small, slow-moving, can’t fly, and appear to be such easy targets to chase down and destroy.  And yet…..   Ella spends many a long hour gazing into the branches working out how she can climb the tree to snag the rat.  Fudge did climb the tree once – having chased a squirrel at such pace towards the walnut she actually ran up the trunk almost to the bottom branches ten feet up before, like Wile E Coyote, she noticed gravity was about to take effect.  It was long way down.

The constant chasing is symptomatic of the turf war between dogs and squirrels over who owns the walnuts.  Ella retrieves them (naturally) and it is a subtle observation game to tell when the lab has a nut in her mouth.  But Fudge has taught her how to crack them open and eat them.  So seeing the squirrels tucking into them will only annoy the territorially jealous dogs.

Elsewhere Ella employs her jumping skills indoors as aprt of the self-appointed dance police.  She won’t allow any dancing at any time and attacks any offenders.  On he whole she is a very quiet dog and the only time she barks is in her sleep.  A Fat Boy Slim gig (which we went to at Pilton Party in September) would be her worst nightmare, but I suspect what really makes her howl in her sleep are those pesky squirrel varmint.

Who’s a celebrity boy then?

Nigel
What makes you so special?

Fame is a choosy mistress.  It is clear from just a casual browse of newspapers, magazines and television that to be deemed a celebrity does not require talent, it is often a matter of coincidence and luck.

Take the celebrity dog Nigel who potters around the garden at Longmeadow with his erstwhile owner Monty Don.  He’s a fairly relaxed chap, with an easy way about him following a wheelbarrow with a spring in his stride and a wag of his tail.  And his dog seems pretty chilled too.  As co-hosts of Gardeners World the pair of them smile to camera every Friday evening while we sit and check what it is we should be doing in the garden this weekend.  It’s not like we don’t already know, it’s just that we like affirmation that we are doing the same as Monty and Nigel.  Needless to say I was a bit dis-chuffed when I saw the size of Monty’s potatoes in a bag, compared with my spuds in a bin, but we will gloss over that for now.

Black is the new Ginger
Black is the new Ginger

But I look at my gardening companion Ella and I reckon she has all the talent of someone like Nigel and surely deserves some fame beyond the narrow confines of a gardening blog read by, well, tens.  First off, she is a shiny sleek black lab: so much more stylish than the rather effete and, whisper it low – ginger – Nigel.  (Strawberry blond?  You’re having a laugh Nige).  Ella potters around the garden and is very knowledgeable about all areas of the beds and borders particularly the spots frequented by rabbits.  She actually despatches them occasionally too.  She actively digs the garden, albeit the lawn, in pursuit of moles, leaving craters into which the mower has on occasion fallen.  She can do cute, too, as she sits and stares into the middle distance, waiting for a rabbit to emerge beyond the tennis court; or alternatively she can tear up seed packets with the best of them.  When all else fails, she can sniff out a ball and toss it triumphantly my way, demanding I at least pick it up to extricate it from the pot I want to use. And maybe – just maybe – I will throw it for her so she can demonstrate her retrieval skills and her ability to stop and turn, throwing up clods of earth from those parts of the lawn not already destroyed by moles.

She clearly has the talent for TV.  The pity of it is that the mere idea of fame seems to have gone to her head and she has skipped straight to the level of the self-absorbed star.  Friday evening she disappeared up over the hill after we had fed the pigs and had to be tracked down by a stressed out Mrs B.  And yesterday morning we came down to a vast amount of dog poo which had clearly come from the larger of our two dogs.  It looked like two massive piles of large diameter black toothpaste.

It’s fair to say there has been a long history of stars going missing (I never got to see The Clash in their heyday because Joe Strummer went walkabout mid-tour) and the examples of celebrities trashing hotel rooms are too numerous to mention; although crapping on your bedroom floor might have been a bit further than most celebs would go and I think Ella might have just been a trifle premature in taking on the self-indulgent high maintenance celebrity role.  Until this blog goes viral she will just have to remain the most wonderful, chilled out labrador / retriever gardening companion any midlifegardener could hope for.

Chicken Run II

Where is that drill bit?
Where is that drill bit?

The major event this Easter has been the return of Chickens to the estate.  After a few site meetings Jim had delivered the posts and wire and between us we had dug three-quarters of the way around the area to be able to dig the fence in.  The gate was a slight issue as we needed to make one, so Jim and I suggested to the OM that he might like to dust off his old woodworking skills and throw one together.  He demurred although he did have what Jim and I both agreed was a good idea to hang the non-existent door from the end of the cow stall instead of securing a square post.  TOM decided to advise me on the size of drill bits, wood and other practical matters to aid me in my task.  “They are in the top shed” he told me.  Such instructions of little use.  He might as well have said they were on Mars.  I would have had more chance of locating them in outer space than in the heaps of old tools, wood and machinery in his shed.

“Do you think you can find them for me?” I asked.  He decided he could – and duly did – thus saving me a frustrating search and giving him another thirty yards of exercise.  A win-win, by my reckoning.

So by the Friday afternoon we had a wall plate and three trenches dug when Jim arrived for the main construction session.  Jim and I work well together.  He has the experience and the right  sanguine attitude towards the OM who pays him for his labour, and I am happy to agree with whatever Jim says and to offer what muscle I can muster.

Posts in
Posts in

It started reasonably well with the acquisition of tools:  metal spike and sledgehammer to the fore.  The OM was keen to tell us that the sledgehammer had been acquired from Yeovilton Air Base in 1962/3 when he was clearing the runway of ice (my first winter was a hard one I am told).  A legendary piece of equipment which promptly broke as we hammered in the first post.  We resumed 10 minutes later with Jim’s tools and cracked on with the job in hand.  Incredibly we managed to get posts and netting up and a strand of supporting wire too.   With only two lengths of wire to go, Jim left me to sort it the next morning but with a warning that it would be a two person job as the wire could get “twisted as fuck” if you did not feed it out carefully.  I took this as a serious piece of advice.  Jim does not often use strong language in my experience.

Gate - constructed by the author - not his father
Gate – constructed by the author – not his father

It only took an hour or two with Verity the next morning to make the run secure.  Which was just as well, as I had arranged to collect the hens that afternoon.  This is the third time that we have sourced chickens from Dorset Hens and they never fail to deliver.  They have a great range of hybrids of various hues, and although after a busy Easter there was not a great choice, we took an eclectic foursome of a Mottled Leghorn, an Amber Star, a Bova Nera and a Colombian Blacktail.   They were in a crate waiting for us when we arrived and the owner grabbed them two at a time to put them in the back of our car (in the dog crate).  As she took the Leghorn she muttered a warning under her breath that this was “a little bastard”.  Or at least that was what I thought I heard.  She actually said “this is the fastest”.  Ok – got ya.

VB and I returned with our clucking cargo and started to unload them. When the OM came up the yard I assumed it was to take a look at the new arrivals, but it turned out the more pressing matter for him was to print off a boarding pass for his impending flight to Newcastle – in three weeks’ time.  I politely suggested I would take a look later.  For the moment I wanted to get my hens settled in….

And so the hens are in.  And they have not hung about, with one already laying (three in total so far) and we have also managed to discourage either dog from getting too interested in the chickens too.  If Ella gets the wrong side of the fence, it will be carnage.  The last time we had hens she was only a puppy but managed to get into the old run, to which I was alerted when I heard one hen shouting “f-koff!, f-koff!”  Ella had the bird in her mouth, but fortunately did not deliver the coup de gras on that occasion.  I don’t think she would be quite so gentle now…

April Unfurls

Easter Buns
My Easter Buns

It’s Easter and bunnies are very much of the moment around here as Ella once again caught her very own Easter Bunny when VB took her for a walk. In Ella’s defence (and the rabbit’s for getting caught by a lugubrious black lab in open grassland twenty hops from the safety of the burrow) there is a lot of myxomatosis around at the moment. So perhaps Ella is doing a merciful task putting rabbits beyond pain before they become too sick. A canine Dignitas for rabbits – though not so dignified for Verity who struggled to get her retriever to drop the still warm, possibly breathing, rabbit.

Who's been digging in my bed?
Who’s been digging in my bed?

Down the garden there was evidence of rabbits in the garden as one part of the chicken wire seemed to have been pushed down before a couple of random holes were dug in the onions.  No onions were harmed in the skirmish but I have since got another couple of rolls of chicken wire from Swift Huts and renewed the rabbit proof fencing around both veg patches.

The  main item on the list of jobs is PLANTING.  The greenhouse is fit to bursting with seed trays full of Broad Beans,  Cabbages, Curly Kale, Cavalo Nero, Kohl Rabi, Leeks, Mangetout, Sugar Snap Peas, Peas, Purple Sprouting, Butternut Squash, Uchiki Kuri Squash, Sweet Peppers, Chilli Peppers, Tomatoes, Coriander, Basil and Aubergines.

Old Faithful
Old Faithful

In addition to a mass of full seed trays, another sure sign of spring is the sound of the rotovator. The old Howard never fails you.  It can sit in the Cow Stall all winter, unloved and seemingly forgotten, but comes out in the spring like a Grizzly Bear from hibernation ready to take all before it.  It never fails to start and apparently needs no maintenance.  It is a marvel.  Or so I was saying as the clutch went half way through digging the salad bed….

I had a feeling it would be easy to mend, but neither myself nor Jim could see it so I was forced to ask the OM to tell me how to re-attach the wire.  I am increasingly worried by his lack of mobility and unwillingness to walk further than the garage and back, but such was the importance of the issue, he made it down the garden to stand on one side of the chicken wire and instruct me on how to mend the machine.  Fortunately it was done in a trice and hopefully the exercise did him good

In the main veg patch I have gone all “No Dig” this year, with the cardboard  keeping the weeds down, so I was able to plant the spuds with relative ease.  I have a combination of Belle de Fontenay, International Kidney, Cherie, Pink Fir Apple, Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Una.  It looks pretty good – apart from the cardboard bits.  While digging them I got an ear worm of “No Surprises” by Radiohead…”A heart that’s full up like a landfill…”

But this job is not going to kill me – it’s what makes me feel alive.

Spring Clean

Seen Better Days
Seen Better Days

In the past two weeks we have had a major eclipse, the term has finished at school and Parliament has been dissolved to make way for the General Election.  All worthy or exciting events, but frankly not as exciting for this midlife green fingered gopher as the opportunity to get out in the garden and actually get some stuff done.  So while the leaders debate who has failed whom, gongs are given out at school for adding up really quickly or colouring between the lines and the moon tries to blot out the sun, it is good to address  important issues like cleaning the greenhouse which, as always at this time of year, lives up to its billing as – literally – a green house, such is the mould on the glass.  But a quick dose of Jeyes fluid and a spray with the hose pipe and an afternoon’s work has seen off twelve months advancing algae.

Birdcatcher
Birdcatcher

While Mrs B and I were working on ridding one airborne invader from the garden the faithful Lab-Retriever was working a little riddance of her own for another airborne invader.  Ella just does not get the fact that as a Retriever (or Labrador – whatever half of her genetic makeup is taking precedence at the time) she really ought to wait till a bird is shot before bringing it back.  She managed to flush out a pheasant that had taken up temporary residence in the garden and took up the challenge of downing the bird.  I guess, for a dog that is obsessed with squirrels and is constantly trying to work out ways of retrieving them from the branches, the chance to snatch a bird is a rare opportunity for hope to triumph over commonsense expectation.  So despite our demands to the contrary, Ella rampaged through shrub and border in her quest and triumphantly brought the bird back to us.  A rare victory for canine over avian, though pheasants barely qualify as flying birds  (certainly not as part of  Noel Gallagher’s band), but that is why we do not have cats, as we value the bird life around here too much.

Higgledy Sweet Peas
Higgledy Sweet Peas

The past couple of weeks have been spent planting a few seeds and planning our flower growing – at which point a big “shout out” for my new BGF (best gardening friend) at Higgledy Garden.  I have just discovered this fab website which can cater for all our flower seed needs as well as entertaining us with regular blog and Facebook posts.  I bought an excellent value selection of sweet peas from Ben and he threw in a packet of nicotiana for good measure.  The sweet peas are in and doing well in the sparkling greenhouse and I will no doubt be picking out nicotiana soon.  The scent around the garden come July should be intoxicating.

 

Stonemouth

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A survivor

With new life in the spring air, death is on the agenda once again in the garden.  We lost four of our hens the other day as a fox (or foxes) took three away and left one fatally injured.  The wounded hen was hiding under a tree with her head jammed under some ivy, totally in shock.  Josh and I only spotted her hours later.  I put her in the hen house and let her out the next day.  She had laid two eggs in the night (one a softy).  I guess it was no surprise she died later that day – she had a massive bite mark in her back where the feathers had been ripped out.

So we are left with one rather bemused looking hen who continues to roost warily in the blue cedar each night, sitting as if on board the bow of a ship.

20140504_100919
On the trail

Elsewhere the canine assault on the rabbit population has resulted in more casualties.  The Black Lab is showing a good turn of speed and a pretty effective killing technique.  For a supposed “soft mouthed” retriever she thankfully dispatches baby rabbits swiftly.  This was particularly useful the other morning when, after being let out early, both dogs bombed back in through the front door within thirty seconds – as normal – to get their breakfast.  As Ella sped through the door and into the kitchen I noticed she had a toy in her mouth.

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Toys out of the pram?

“But she has no toys in the garden” was my immediate thought, which segued to me shouting “hey!” at my startled dog, who spat the baby rabbit out by the fridge.  I surveyed the poor creature for a moment or two to check it was dead.  Which it was, thankfully.  The thought of a rabbit loose in the kitchen being pursued by my over-excited dogs was not something I wanted to experience.  We’ve only just put it back together after re-decorating – it does not need to be rearranged by two idiot dogs in pursuit of a petrified rabbit.

I was just gob-smacked (indeed I guess Ella was, literally) by how quickly she had run into the garden, collected the live rabbit in her mouth and returned for breakfast with said bunny.  Being a Labrador she naturally suffers from CRS (Compulsive Retrieval Syndrome).  But this was taking things a little far.

20140509_140636
A hard mouth of stone

Later the same day Ella saw more success.  She has developed a tactic similar to a sheep dog in which she pelts up the right side of the garden in an out-run before sweeping around the top of the middle border or coming down the centre of either that border or the Silver Wedding bed.  I am not sure that the shrubs are going to survive the constant pounding but Ella did snare another rabbit, emerging out of the flower bed with broken Hosta leaves flying like anti-aircraft chaff, bunny in mouth.

She readjusted it a couple of times to complete the job, like a heron aligning the orientation of a fish before swallowing.  Thankfully this did not occur, although I would not have been surprised to see her try to swallow it whole – with her gullet she eats first and vomits later, as I am all too aware.  She dropped the corpse for me to dispose of effectively.  Which I duly did – taking it to Jim for his ferrets (or hawks).

So fewer and fewer rabbits and hens.  But probably less and less border shrubs.

Help Wanted 2

A year ago I wrote about my gardening buddy Fudge.  This is an update on my “Home Help” as I now have two such assistants.

April is here and the baby bunnies are gamboling in the increasingly warm sunshine.

How do you get to the other side?
How do you get to the other side?

Although gambling would be a better description as, with two crazed dogs lurking in the garden, the young buns are looking out-gunned. The first morning of combat saw both dogs trying to burrow into the prickly Berberis at the end of the boomerang bed.  Ella, thick in the fur and thick in the head was able to go in deepest, flushing a rabbit out which passed Fudge heading rapidly in the opposite direction.  She didn’t see it, but both dogs headed off in hot pursuit.

A little while later I found Fudge, licking her lips, with the upper half of a half eaten rabbit nearby.

Dogs 1 Rabbits 0

There was more success on greenhouse cleaning day, when Ella triumphantly retrieved another slaughtered fledgling rabbit for us.  Pleased as punch, she was.  For convenience, Claire put the corpse high in the plum tree – out of reach of the dogs until such time as we could dispose of the body more conveniently, without Fudge and Ella following the scent out of the garden.

Later, Ella was looking concerned, growling and even raising a bark (which is unusual for

Out of harm's way
Out of harm’s way

her) as she came back to the house.  I took my nervous labrador down the garden, only to discover the rabbit had disappeared.  There was no doubt it WAS dead, but, well, you know, it being Easter and all, was there a chance that this rabbit had risen again?  With no sign of any stone being rolled away and with the only apparent witness to the miracle being a dumb labrador, we are left to surmise on possible explanations.  The best I could come up with – other than a new Lapine messiah or a rabbit zombie – was that Ella had been spooked by a bird of prey taking the rabbit from the cross.  Tree.  I think a buzzard rising from the plum tree would be enough to scare most puppies.

So, with fewer rabbits to chase, my intrepid / naughty dogs have turned to escapology, finding ways out of the garden.  Fudge is the leader of the escape committee: if she gets out, Ella is all too easily led astray.  So with Fudge tied up, Ella has no inclination to escape.  But Fudge is still able to do her Houdini impersonations even on the String of Shame, managing to make off around the corner and over the fence.  You will need to look at the gallery to understand – it’s more of a visual joke.

As a footnote, we will continue to tie Fudge up in the garden, although my mother-in-law

Back on the String of Shame
Back on the String of Shame

is of the opinion that Fudge should just be put down.  As Claire’s parents are currently involved in moving from their own nice two bedroom bungalow, with beautifully tended garden (which her dad adores) to a small rented property nearby with only a patch of grass, overlooked by close neighbours, the similarities with Fudge’s desire to wander are uncomfortably close.  The old bitch has a perfectly lovely house and garden to live in, but is causing angst and stress to the others in the house by always wanting to be somewhere else – not appreciating what she has and always looking at the grass on the other side of the fence.  Solution?  Have her put down.  Hmmmmm…

As she is more likely to stay in the garden, Ella is proving to be more of a companion than her partner.  Although she does still have one or two habits which will take some work ridding her of.  For a start, she has little idea of boundaries within the garden and rummages through flower beds as well as trampling vegetable patches.  Chicken wire is a minimal deterrent for her.  And secondly, like all Labradors, she has an “eat first, ask questions later” approach to anything remotely edible.  So the intestines of an adult rabbit she ate the other day were duly deposited all across the kitchen floor an hour later.

So, very companionable, but not a great deal of help still.