We had hoped that our friends Ange and Minnie-Moo were going to join us as well, but Minnie's dad had a car accident and although, very happily, he is ok their car really isn't :o( We missed them though :o)
The weather was meant to be very cold and very wet, but luckily the sun shone and we only had a few short showers. The dogs couldn't have cared less about the weather anyway! They smelled the fresh air, saw the water and grass and mud and had a wonderful time!
Before heading off on the rest of the walk, we stopped at the river to let the dogs have a splash. Flora and Wiggle made the most of it, but Bran was rather more sensible and didn't go in too far this time.
And then it was time to head off through the fields. Rather precariously, there were lots and lots of fishermen out and the dogs were very interested in what they were doing - or perhaps it was the contents of their tuck boxes that interested them!
Amber trying to keep up with Bran and Flora
Sophie with her bestest friend - Sir Henery - and Amber
Bran and Flora racing
Bran displaying a view that, unbeknown to him, will be changing forever tomorrow!
Group shot
We then stopped at the pub for the humans to warm up on coffee, hot chocolate, mulled wine, chips, whatever... The pub is a very lovely, dog friendly place called The Cross Guns. Last time we went they told us that the dogs would be very welcome inside the pub by the fire, but, as this time, we chose to sit outside and enjoy the autumn sunshine. We sat right beside the river and it was just beautiful. We couldn't have inflicted so many filthy, dirty dogs on a public house anyway!!
Bran giving his Auntie Wendy a sneaky snog
Bran and Flora looking not very clean at all!
Todd tried to convince his mum to feed him scraps using his telepathic powers
Wiggle and Sir Henery looking very handsome
Freddie and Amber the beautiful, barky bassetts
Louie very sensibly decided to get rid of the bulk of his mud by wiping it on his mum!
The dogs were sooooooo dirty by the time that we got home, that they both had a nice (I'm not sure that they would have chosen that word to describe the torture that they endured!) bath, were put into snuggly jumpers, and curled up in their beds with chews before having a nice long sleep.
After such a long walk where she did so much running around, Flora's hips were very sore this morning and Bran didn't help matters by trying to bounce all over her, so I decided to leave Flora at home in the warm and take Bran to the park by himself to try and tire him out a bit. I also decided to take his puppy dummy with us to do some work on his retrieving. Just recently he has become more and more interested in playing with balls above any other toy - which can only help with the whole retriever thing - and so I took a tennis ball too.
He loves the puppy dummy! I do have a brand new one but Wendy sent us one that used to be Dolly's so it obviously smells much much nicer than the new one ;o)
He was very keen to chase after it and brought it back with no trouble at all and for no reward other than a big fuss from his mum :o)
To try and keep the excitement with chasing after the dummy, I replaced it with the tennis ball after a few very fast and excited retrievals. Again, Bran raced after the ball and brought it straight back to me to hand over.
Whilst off fetching the tennis ball, Bran spotted what looked like a discarded carrier bag from where I was. He kept looking at it suspiciously and then started bouncing at it and barking! Rather than ignore his confusion, I walked over to the "carrier bag" with him to give him a bit of moral support whilst he bravely investigated his find.
"What's this funny thing, Mum?"
"Yay!! I can play "fetch" with this one too. Look! Aren't I a clever boy?"
We then had a bit of a modelling session amongst the autumnal backdrop. Bran was very distracted by the wind blowing the leaves around and there seemed to be an awful lot of interesting smells about today, but I got a couple of lovely pictures.
I love the colours in this photo, even if he is looking the wrong way
And this photo just shows how grown up Bran is becoming. He is beginning to lose his puppy looks and looks almost like a real lab now.
He is still my very handsome, baby boy though xxx
Good luck for the unmentionable tomorrow Bran!
ReplyDeleteWe are sorry we couldn't make it yesterday but very glad you all had a great time and the weather stayed nice.
M-M
xxx