Love his Olive and Mabel videos…one of the few good things to come out of the Covid years,
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Lovely, it helps at the moment, when our large puppy, Shanna is wanting to play just a little bit too much, and often, with Jules. And when the frustration causes more blanket chewing and more me me behaviour.
Ssshh, at the moment they are both asleep, I hardly dare move a muscle. 
BTW, that Scottish voice is that the Buchanan bloke who does all the wildlife photography?
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No he’s a sport commentator, Andrew Cotter… And with no sports to comment on during covid he took to filming his dogs, some of them are hilarious!
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Like this one
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He’s got two books out. I’m amazed they “work” since, for me, what is key in his videos is his hushed, gentle commentary as if he’s sitting alongside a cricket match - so different from the appalling raucousness of football matches.
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I have seen that before, but had forgotten how good it was, and how accurate here with Jules and Shanna. The young challenger even has a handicap advantage, slightly less croquettes for the lighter body and only one pill to consume as opposed to the old man’s two. 
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LOVE this one:
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Oh dear, that sadly mirrors my experience here with Shanna, a lively youngster who is living with 3 old fogies and as a result is getting increasingly stressed with boredom.
I have ordered more Rescue Remedy and a couple of Kongs (to counterract destructive tendancies) but I fear she may have to go back to the pension when I visit next week if I can’t turn it around. 
Oh no! The weather is swiftly improving, are long walks possible? If she likes water a nice swim can be great exercise. You and Jules can watch safely from the bank and throw her balls to go after. Because I cannot throw a ball further than a few metres, I found a ChuckIt stick is very useful. ( If only I could get my dogs to return the ball to me but at least I get good walks.)
You may find a better source than this but here’s an Amazon link:
There are also ‘Air Balls’ that float:
I’d also caution against the many copy throwing sticks on offer because I know several people who thought they’d save a penny and found their new sticks soon snapped.
Thank you for the thoughts Susannah, but I think throwing anything into a fairly fast flowing river might be counter productive if I have to follow her all the way to Bordeaux to retrieve her. 
Her (and mine and Jules’) friend Ouaci, the 14 year old Collie who adores all 3 of us, does swim in the river but Shannah did not follow her lead yesterday, contenting herself with splashing her long legs in the shallows. Might explain why she didn’t jump into my pond when I gave her the opportunity.
As regards the long walks, as they have the maximum freedom on the 33 metre lines I have found it impossible to walk them together now. Too much tangling. I could let her off the line, her recall is good but I do worry when she races like a Greyhound to such a long distance from me and, in any case, until the end of June, I think it is illegal.
Breaking News: the gate bell just rang and 2 little boys were standing outside it with Shanna alongside them, completely unattached and waiting patiently with them.
So as if she isn’t giving me enough worries, she has added escaping to them for the first time. The last time she appeared at their house was when I mislaid her from the forest and field in the days when she was offlead. They have a 7 month old puppy but they said she wasn’t playing with it because it was indoors and she was in their unfenced garden.
This has really shaken me, apart from the puppy our parents bought us when my brother and I were very young, I have no experience of training young dogs, only older, 7 or 8 year plus, ones. I will have to search online for advice, the deadline of next Friday isn’t set in stone, it is simply that day when I have been tasked to collect a Dobie boy from Poitiers and would have to leave her at the pension on the way there. This boy I know, because I delivered him there last November, despite a reputation of aggression against other males, gets on fine with Jules, alongside in a cage of course.
Next job is scrambling through the undergrowth to try and find out from where she got out.
Just to get this thread back on track, this was Drako (in the cage) alongside Jules when I delivered him last November.
and a better picture of him playing with his new female friend Tokyo back home in Normandie
On looking for these pictures I saw that Tokyo is just over 2 years old.
Shanna is just under 3 years old.
Are you thinking what I am thinking? 
Time for another email to Marydob I think. 
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I quite understand your concern and follow your drift towards Tokyo 
. I wish you all well and everyone in a forever home that suits all. 
Sage, a Miniature Poodle, Wins Best in Show at Westminster
I think we’ll just stick with the usual toilettage…
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This is Galys, rapidly becoming Alice, who arrived with Jules and I on Tuesday. She is 12 years old but with excellent teeth and a rapid turn of speed. Her first mission on leaving the car, which she adores, was to race around the whole garden including our mini forest. Pictures of that are in the lawns and weeds thread.
She is not completely deaf, but only hears loud sounds, clapping or whistling within a few metres, so today we will be starting on her deaf dog recall training. Can’t come soon enough because I got in a terrible tangle with 2 dogs each on a 33 metre line yesterday, so it will be one at a time from now on until she is good enough to be offlead completely. For most hearing dogs that is 2 or 3 days, obviously deaf ones somewhat longer.
The first night was a nightmare for me. Awoken to crashing sounds at 2am and clearing up the mess in the kitchen I could not get back to sleep so read my Kindle for an hour. Then after re-achieving deep sleep, more crashing sounds at 5 am and more, though less, to clear up. I gave up after that. Last night was calmer with no interruptions.
Click once on the first pic then you can scroll right to see the 2nd one, equally enlarged.
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Super dog. So glad they are getting on. And a neat way to use the cage gate as an additional guard. 
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Yes, that situation was not planned, basically due to her love of the car. That is the way when the back of the car is shut so that when I invite Jules in he jumps into the cage. Then it is shut so that he doesn’t shoot out unattached when the car lid is opened.
On that first walk yesterday with both of them, I opened the car as usual for Jules to jump in but she beat him to it. So I closed the cage to allow Jules to jump into the space alongside and clipped a lead attached to the front of the cage so he couldn’t jump out.
When we got to the river field I unclipped that and clipped the 33 metre on him and let him out, trailing it. I then opened the cage door to clip Galys onto the other 33m and let her out then shut the cage so that Jules could jump into the space afterwards. But when we got back to the car Jules jumped into the space, as planned but before I could open the cage door for her, she jumped in to where Jules was.
So I opened the door anyway as you can see. I then had to flake the 2 long lines into the cage instead of the normal space alongside so both had to be stretched out later in the garden to be flaked back where they belong.
I hope you have all understood that because it has taken me quite some time work it out for myself.
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This sounds like the dogs are running things and you are just their servant that opens the door for them into the car
Not only that, you missed all the bowing scraping I have to do as well.
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