(30-06-2011, 09:02 PM)Sweder Wrote: Cam seemed to enjoy running with the dogs, a first for her. Ripley and Murphy did their best to trip us up, weaving wildly as their olfactory senses went into overdrive. Lord only knows what the heady mix of sheep shit and fresh rabbit does to their tiny brains. Willow, our hirsute Cocker Spaniel, positioned herself between us, constantly looking back to make sure Cam was still with the pack.

I envy Willow. When Gypsy and Tess died last year she went into a canine funk that saw her, like so many of the great Divas, spiral into a food-fuelled decline. Then, at the end of February, boom! Two manic lurcher pups arrived. At first they drove her mad, fussing around their reluctant surrogate mother, inducing theatrical growls and savage teeth-gnashing. It didn’t put them off and once they’d got old enough to run off the lead something remarkable happened: Willow became an honorary lurcher. Working those impossibly short legs like steam driven pistons she threw herself into protective parental mode, rounding up the pups, barking them into line, chasing them up hill and down dale. As the summer grasses grew this crazy game of lick-chase took on a new dimension. First the insistent hiss of parted reeds, a flash of dark, darting fur before the bobbing, weaving Dog Express charges into the open. In the last three months Willow has shifted shape and a shed-load of lard. She now has a waist, a taught belly and a lust for life. As I say, I’m envious; just waiting for that old pup magic to rub off on me.