"Everybody loves a summer holiday..."

Except a working gundog!

And The Bestest Gundog in All the World is no exception........

Last summer was fun - it was all about learning new things and going to new places with no idea what for. Now he knows what for but doesn't understand why we're not still doing the work bit. He has no idea yet of the pattern of his life. He is going to be sooooo excited when the new Season starts (18th September and counting......).

In the meantime he's making the most of it and having fun of quite a different kind. For whatever reason, this year we have more rabbits than we have had for many a year. And they have mixymatoses - probably because there are so many of them..... and, unfortunately (for me, not him) TBGiAtW quickly discovered that he can catch them; so hardly a day goes by when he doesn't proudly present me -

"Here, look what I brought you..."

- with at least one poor creature. Which is good on the one hand ---- he brings them to me; and bad on the other - he is only supposed to flush rabbits, not catch them! Even sick ones. Somehow this needs to be learned before September......

The other joy in life is, of course, all the baby birds who can't yet fly; and most days he brings me one of those too.

"Such fun, mum"

Then there's the long grass - which is just so exciting to run through, full of smells and slow rabbits and even slower little birds.............. and seeds. Spaniels attract grass seeds like magnets attract iron filings. They get into ears and nostrils and toes and armpits and ... well, just about anywhere. Visits to the vet are as much a part of a spaniel owner's summer as swallows. At best the seeds just get under the skin and cause cysts; at worst they creep up a leg from the toe, or down ears into eardrums or right up noses or become deeply embedded elsewhere and cause nasty infections which require operations to remove them. To a spaniel owner, long grass is the worst nightmare.

Thus it was today that TBGiAtW had to go to the vet (who told of the spaniel he'd operated on earlier in the week - 35 grass seeds removed from the armpit area!). A swollen left front paw and a nasty red patch on the left back paw had, all week, failed to respond to soaking in salty water ("Paws", like "Ears" now has the effect of making him creep off into a corner and roll over pleading .... "No, no, no, please not the paws" ). When the hair was cut off, the nasty red patch revealed an even nastier cyst beween his toes which required lancing - disclosing the evil grass seed inside.

But the vet couldn't find the cause of the swelling in the front paw - no tell-tale signs of seeds. A bit worrying. Have to give him a 5-day course of antibiotics and see what happens....... And try even harder to keep him out of the long grass (lots of heel work) whilst still letting him hunt where its 'safe' .... I'm rapidly becoming an expert in 'places that don't have long grass'.... which is easy because at the moment they are very few and far between! And there's always the river for a spot of water retrieving on really hot days......... so maybe the spaniel is loving his summer holiday????