Little Ones & Growing-ups

It hardly seems possible that Gunner has been with us for nearly 3 months. Already he is beginning to resemble a 'grown up' spaniel rather than a roly-poly brown flecked sausage. He hasn't started 'school' yet but already he sits, stays and comes to command and walks to heel with or without his lead. He even had his first - informal - retrieving lesson yesterday, courtesy of Lancer. Polly and her ducklings had strayed far away from their pond and were merrily waddling around the yard not far from the pigs. Gunner happened upon them whilst mooching around whilst I was mucking out. He tried to make out what they were, which entailed getting quite close. They, naturally, didn't want to be too close so waddled quickly away, whereupon he wanted to get closer... and they wanted to get further away..... and so it went on till all the ducklings bar one had got away... at which point Lancer decided it was time to intervene and gently picked up the slow-coach. Gunner thought the game was then to take the duck from Lancer: but he growled something fierce and gave the duckling - shaken but unharmed - to me. I returned it to the hen-house. A little later yet another straying duck found itself in exactly the same position - with Gunner eager to help her go wherever she wanted to go, and Lancer quick to 'retrieve' the situation and return the duck to me to place back in the hen house. Somewhat later again (and either the ducks were being very stupid or were in cahoots with Lancer) Gunner found himself on the other side of Polly and her brood when I called him. So he calmly sat down, watched whilst she moved her brood away from him; then he inched closer and sat down again until she'd moved them all far enough away for him to calmly run around them and then quickly back to me. WHAT a clever dog - and not even 6 months old yet! He has to be a star in the making.

Meanwhile, Daffodil has been proudly showing off her latest brood; it's just a week old and OK so there is only one, but she couldn't be prouder if there were 20 of them. Let's just hope it's a baby hen and not another Cockerel........ should know by Christmas.....