Olivier (Ollie), the grey one, and Isabel (Izzy), the potato. Half siblings brought with us on the plane. (We never dress them up, but their daycare in the US did holiday photos.) Ollie is super chill, Izzy is a line-stepper = we’re pretty sure that in the last photo, Izzy is contemplating pushing her brother off the steps. They are well spoiled.
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I know that I introduced our Lance here, 3 years ago. May I now introduce Val, this one from the Netherlands, bred by a friend of mine. I had the privilege of first pick. He is going to be A BIG BOY, already bigger than Lance and Wren. He cost a bomb, but is the cream of the crop. Easiest puppy we had in a very long time, full of joy and the new love of my life. After all the others, obviously.
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Is that an Irish Wolfhound ? Sorry if it’s obvious 
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There is quite a friendly Russian chap living in our old Luberon village who has a gigantic wolf hound. All the villagers wave from a safe distance. I wonder who they’re more afraid of 
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Not quite. It’s a Deerhound. The scottish cousin.
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Levrier Ecossse, a friend of ours had half a dozen of them together with a similar number of Wolfhounds plus all shapes and sizes up to a total of 25 dogs at one point. She owned a very large house on a very large property which contained within it another 3 bed house with its own garden. Which is where we stayed from time to time to look after them all when she went on holiday.
All the dogs, large and small were well behaved and gentle with us and we loved every minute of it.
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Isabelle ?
Not a nuthurr wern?
No actually, Anna.
Does she show?
No no, she wasn’t a breeder, she was a rescuer, some of the other dogs were Heinz dogs (57 varieties 
)
They all lived in the house, some on her massive bed, an emperor, bigger than a double. She had no use for bidets so the ones in the several bathrooms always had clean water in for the dogs to help themselves. They all had access to the outside 24/7, just like Jules here, and the kitchen door had a massive rectangular hole in it covered by a heavy piece of thick rubber as a dog flap so even the Wolfhounds could come and go. 
Saying all that has reminded me, she moved further away towards Brive I think in a somewhat smaller place, be nice to make contact again. 
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Deerhounds don’t really come into rescue, they are a rare breed on the red list in the UK, and here they resemble hens’ teeth. And the breeders keep a very close eye on their puppies and all work together. So I’m very intrigued as to where they all came from. Saying that, I’ve rehomed a couple of french dogs to the UK in the last 2 years, with another one waiting for a rehoming down in Switzerland.
No idea where she got them, she had them before we first met her in 1999, she’s Dutch so they may have come from there like the Greyhound we went there to adopt.
I wasn’t really looking for a Greyhound but she wanted rid of the 2 sisters she had because they were dominent and ‘disrupted my group.’ All her dogs were shut in the kitchen as we discussed the matter in her living room (which was 3 times the size of our whole house). She opened the door to the kitchen enough to shout through in English ‘I want the Greyhounds just the Greyhounds’ and, sure enough, only the Greyhounds came through. It amazed us at the time but I now think it was proof of their dominance, they had shouldered all others out of the way to meet us. 
BTW she also had the most intelligent dog I have ever known, a tiny Spaniel/Dachsund X called Mini. Every Sunday all the dogs had a raw egg each as a treat. They were handed out, unbroken, one each at a time and the dogs broke and ate them whole. Except for Mini who with her small jaws struggled to collapse the shells, so we would drop her egg onto the stone slabs and she scoffed every bit of it, and woe betide any of the others who dared to steal her Sunday treat, a look would be enough. We had her here for a time when she was ‘on the run from the Gendarmes’. 
A neighbouring farmer accused her of directing a much larger dog, a Bruno du Jura, Sofie, to kill his chickens. But I think I have told that story before somewhere.
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Ignore the hideous baby and look at this beauty! Ok there’s also a lab and a cocker spaniel in the picture with the pram
Oops forgot to say @Soggydoggy these were really for you.
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I love a big shaggy dog, the bigger the better, with one provisor, I can’t be doing with slobbery. I don’t remember Anna’s giants being slobbery.
But it is the only reason I have never had a Dane or a Newfoundland for example and the one and only St. Bernard that came to us for a week or so had to move on. Even his completely dividing of the house into 2 zones because he insisted on sleeping in the connecting doorway wouldn’t have been a problem, I could have trained him out of that.
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Yes, they are sharper than Deerhounds. Although my huge big beautiful Duke was the mildest mannered dog ever. An ex racer .
One of my aunts has old English mastiffs, smooth and rough coated, beauties and sweethearts but oh god the slobber - a shake of the head and there are ropes of it on the ceiling, and everywhere else.
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I remember looking at an online “Find your perfect dog” questionnaire. One of the first questions concerned your attitude to drool.
, lovely! You have told me before, it’s great you dug out some photos! Lovely dog.
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