Mrs Down's Diary - December 2 2009

But usually it is as they get older and I think they need the warmth of the kitchen.

Pip has achieved the impossible. She started off in the farmhouse, and is still here.

And she is housetrained. Something again that is a minor miracle for our dogs.

Nearly all the others would sneak off for a swift tiddle at some time and our little Jack Russell Bud never even felt ashamed of it.

He would deliberately cock his leg up against chairs, table, waste paper bins and then, as he was being banished outside, spray the back door. Defiant to the end.

John has started Pip's training as a gun dog. She has a fantastic nose on her. Hide any of her toys and she will seek them out.

Cover her eyes and turn her head away and she will cast around until her toy is found. Every evening he spends half an hour with her in a field practising sit and stay

(Pip not John). Mixed success but generally positive.

The negative side to Pip and what threatens her status as house dog, is chew. My desk.

When she was little she would retreat to the kneehole underneath and sleep.

She still does, but recently has combined it with gradually chewing through the wood, a sound, that echoing through the house can jolt me awake in the middle of the night.

For that reason I have bought her a big rubber bone today and I hope that keeps her amused tonight as she has already demolished a pair of my daughter's trendy Ugg boots, my walking shoes and this week's farming and shooting magazines.

That very nearly was her 'last drink at the last chance saloon', but John seems to be able to forgive her anything.

Yesterday afternoon I took Pip to join John on a shoot.

He had Holly, our Springer spaniel with him, and asked me to keep Pip on the lead and let her get used to the sound of gunshot and the presence of so many other dogs.

My worry was that Holly would feel her nose had been put out of joint with Pip joining her for the afternoon. No such worries.

Holly is single minded and a hundred Pips would not put her off her work.

Pip did well too. The noise of the guns had no effect on her at all.

She was quivering with excitement the whole time and could not wait to jump into a pond at the end of the day, to practise retrieving her duck.

I think she had been watching Holly going in after ducks and was just disappointed that her retrieve was padded fluffy toy duck and not a real feathered one.