I'm no expert......

I met a friend of mine the other day who has got a six month old whippet puppy called Bow.  The puppy was doing what all puppies do and jumping up at me excitedly.  It was quickly distracted by a passing labrador and then tried to eat a bit of dried chewing gum from the pavement.  'Your dogs always look so calm and collected when you are out' she said and I laughed.  A big laugh.  'Don't you believe it' I said.  Its taken me three years of walks to get to that point.  'Really?'  'Oh yes, I replied' and I went on to tell her the amount of times I had come back from walking my dogs in exasperated tears, humiliated and at the end of my tether.  We started laughing.  'But you look like such an expert'.  And looking back, when I was walking my pair of wilful, big and easily distracted puppies I used to look at other dog walkers and think - 'Why can't my two be like that?'.  I thought I'd never get there with either of them and I'd be foolish if I thought I was there now - only yesterday Kizzy decided it might be fun to cross two fields in about ten seconds, taking the easily led Mac with her.  I was tooting on my whistle for ages and then, in a panic, I ran across the back field in my wellies and rain coat, hailstones bouncing off my head until I arrived in the hay field with about ten kilos of mud stuck to my boots to find two very sweaty but happy looking dogs running round in circles chasing after nothing at all.  I was spitting feathers.

Getting Started....

Am trying to squeeze in a quick techno lesson before my son comes home from school and so far I have slid off the internet twice and then had to break off to feed the cat soI am putting in a very quick post just to get started.  I thought  I would have had time to give this more thought but as usual my day has joined the ranks of all the other pear-shaped days that litter my life. 

Here's a little bit of what's coming:  I am currently writing a book about my longdogs.  Longdogs are a cross between two sight hounds and have a very ancient and noble background, but of late have got a bad press due to their associations with poaching.  They are different from lurchers, who have a working dog mixed in with them, maybe a terrier or a collie.  They are called Longdogs because they are, well...long.  My big dog is a special kind of longdog called a Staghound - a deerhound/greyhound cross and my little dog is a greyhound/saluki cross - we call her a Greyluki - in keeping in line with the current fashion for designer cross-breeds!  I hope to introduce you to my dogs over the next few weeks and share with you some of the on-going work from the book with is called THE GYSPY AND THE GIANT:  MY LIFE WITH LONGDOGS. 

I am looking for all kinds of stories about dogs, but partiuclarly big dogs and longdogs in particular.  Please feel free to let me know your best and worst big dog moments.  I will be sharing mine with you on this blog....