Following my post yesterday about the British weather, just to make a point,this is the sky I woke up to this morning.  Sorry it isn’t a very good photo! But it was a lovely sunrise.

 

At the woods,  the dogs had great fun discovering horizontal trees that had blown down in the wind.  So much easier to pee on!

Talking of dogs peeing, sorry to lower the tone, that brings me on neatly to my rather special friend and confident…Charlie.  A 10½ year old mongrel from Battersea Dogs Home (Boy! did they see me coming?)  I thought he would be so grateful that I gave him a new home but no, he saw me as a dead weight on the end of a lead, a bowl filler and supplier of biscuits.

He was, and I can say this because he can’t read, the most horrid dog, he would bite me, he wouldn’t look at me, he would jump so high that we ended up surrounding the garden with an 8 ft fence, he would run and run just for the joy of running, his record of running off was a 5 hour stint, as you can imagine, I was not amused.  In fact at one stage I was considering renaming him ‘Forest Gump’. At the local kennels they called him a ‘Door Dodger’ he just wanted to run!!! They started off by putting him in the Boarding Kennels (where normal dogs go) and after a day they put him in the ‘Quarantine Kennels’ to prevent him getting out!

Anyway I digress, Charlie is now a perfect gentleman and I have almost forgotten all these little foibles!!  (It took a long time but we got there!) I can take him almost anywhere, he has been to many of my friends’ and family’s houses and I’ve never had a worry (as long as he can’t escape).  Two nights ago, I was visiting one of my dog walking friends, who has two amazing Jack Russells that Charlie loves to play with.  He has visited their house before, knows the lay out and where the garden (play area) is.

On arrival he was greeted by the little ones and made his way to the back door wanting to play in the garden.  I didn’t want him to go as  he would come back in with  muddy paws….so I told him to go and settle…..after about 10 minutes he made his way to the back door again wanting to go out ….once more, I told him to go and settle.  Off he went sulking, he mooched off into the lounge with the two JRs in  tow …. two minutes later we hear the son of my friend “Quickly come and see what Charlie did!”

I entered the lounge and  I was mortified, he didn’t want to play outside he needed to pee, so he went up to what was most familiar to him and cocked his leg…yes, you’ve guessed it… the beautifully decorated Christmas Tree. I couldn’t believe it, he has NEVER, EVER peed indoors. I didn’t know what to say (and believe me that doesn’t happen very often). We spent the next ½ hour mopping and disinfecting the carpet.

I’m just so grateful that my friends are ‘Doggie People’.  What worries me now though is that Charlie may assume that his two mates are ‘posher’ than him because they have their very own tree in the house!!  I’m glad to say that he hasn’t tried to duplicate this behaviour in my house.  I’m certainly not buying him a tree when I haven’t even got a downstairs loo for myself!!