THE DOGS AND CHICKENS AT BLACKHILL

A bit late but do come to meet the dogs and hens I was looking after a few weeks ago!

The dogs are play fighting just now, bouncing round the sitting room, sort of but not quite biting each other. It is slightly alarming!

They have just stopped and are staring at each other in a panty sort of way. Soon, I expect they will be cuddled up together. They always go to sleep curled into each other.

Tosca is a pug. She is quite stocky has only one eye and is very deaf but is only four years old, despite that. She is pale with the most wrinkled face. When she sleeps she snores a lot. When she walks she pants a lot. She doesn’t so much run as walk very fast but more often, on walks, she snuffles around, and goes nowhere very much.

I have to be patient on those walks; the first ten minutes, we may stray about ten feet from the car. During this time she will ignore all my cajoling and calling but I am not too sure if she is just pretending she can’t hear because she wants to do her own thing. Arlo will bounce up to her and bounce away again until, all of  a sudden, she makes  up her mind and starts off on the walk.

For much of the walk she will be walking just inches behind me on the track. Quite frequently I will stop and look all around me, wondering where she has got to, only to find that she is right at my feet about to get trodden on. 

(The dogs have stopped fighting and are now fast asleep besides each other.)

 I am not convinced how good she is with other dogs, she goes rigid and growls when she sees a new dog, so I have taken her onto her lead each time we meet a new one.

On the last walk, just as I was walking round a corner, have coming down from the wind turbine, we met another person with a dog, which was a great surprise. I immediately called Arlo to me and started putting Tosca on the lead.

Just as I was fumbling with the clips, the man who was tall and lean, just like a Laird should be, called out that he knew the dogs and that so did his dog, which was a lurcher crossed with I am not sure what, but it looked like a small wolf hound. Of course he knew them; he is Antoinette, their owners, cousin and owns all the land around here.

He really was just how I imagine a Laird should be, posh sounding but Scottish, friendly, craggy, walking stick, conversational but just enough so.  He told me all about the harvest and said, to his surprise, after the recent weather; that they have just tested the grain after finishing the harvest yesterday and that it is of very good quality.

He also said he was very surprised that Tosca had got this far. I was quite pleased at that but once he had set off up the track towards his hut, presumably to escape after a hectic few days, I realised I had forgotten to tell him I had driven about half the way to where we were presently standing.

I have been told that Tosca is a bit of a besom although I am not sure they used that word but she definitely has an attitude and is frequently grumpy. At night she very irritatingly takes ages and ages to come out for her late night wee and poo. She will remain inside until Arlo has finished and slowly, she will walk to the door, sniff the air, walk onto the road and just stand there doing nothing. I have learnt to wait now until eventually she does her poo; if she doesn’t she will poo in the kitchen at night instead.

Despite her grumpiness she is very affectionate  and gets very excited to see me when I have been away for a bit. Both the dogs follow me wherever I happen to be in the house and if I am writing from the bed she will grump on the floor until eventually with a great leap she will reach the bed and promptly sit on me. She gets very itchy and needs medicine for it and also has a cream I am meant to put on her if she has been scratching herself raw.

Arlo is a stunningly beautiful black spaniel. He is wonderful; constantly enthusiastic, always wanting to know what is going on, always rushing to the door, if a rare car or person or tractor comes past. He likes to lick me, if I am ignoring him and likes to sleep and currently has a sore on his neck which we think he got from running into a fence. He likes sticks, as any self-respecting dog should do, but he much prefers errant sheep or deer bones and is reluctant to drop them. He loves swimming in the sea and the rivers and stinking ponds. He tends to walk about twenty feet in front of us but, the moment I call his name, he will rush back to me. He just wriggles with delight when he sees me and, if I have been on my lap-top too long, will come up to me and put his head between my crossed legs where the lap-top is resting. Or else he will stand up against me and threaten to put his paws on the key board.

I have just realised that I only have another few hours with these dogs and then I will leave, probably never to see them again. I have really enjoyed getting to know them. I will miss them when I leave this evening.

I have already said goodbye the hens and the cockerel. It is dark now and their owners are due back in an hour. They have spent the day wandering the harvested fields and have spent a lot of the time a little up the track, pecking at the fallen straw and grain at the edge of the field.

In the mornings, once I have taken the dogs up the track, I go to the hen run and open up the coop. Immediately the two brown hens will stalk out, intent on getting to their food in the shed, as soon as possible. The white one and the yellow one take much longer and look at me suspiciously. The cockerel arrives much later and will look on me with even more suspicion; ready to rush back into the coop if I startle him.

There used to be twice the number of chickens but I am told that a few weeks ago, a pine martin got through a narrow gap in the coop and killed half of them.

Around ten thirty I open up the run and prop the gate against a stone, give the chickens some raisins, if I remember and which they love. They will file out onto the lawn where they will spend the day under trees, in hedges, in the fields and on the road. I come across them and hear them at odd moments. In the afternoon I look for eggs which I will have for breakfast the next day and then, as dusk falls and they go back to the coop, I shut them in and shut the run gate and leave them, hopefully safe, for the night.

I really like the chickens but they tend to run away as soon as I get near them, still, it was good to meet them!!