…who’s there? Lola. Lola who? L-O-L-A Lola. (Sorry, as a “knock knock" joke it’s hardly up there with the greats is it?)

Rosie and Archie were taught by DM to ask to go out by tapping on the door. It worked really well. If one of them needed to go out when we hadn’t noticed, they tapped and went. They’d do it from the other side too so if they were out and wanted to come in, they’d tap to come in. That’s the glory of Collies, they are so bloody clever they are more clever than some people.

JD and Lola were taught the same thing – if you want to go out, you ask by tapping. That’s grand for JD who taps only when he REALLY needs to go out but for Lola, the world’s most playful and restless dog, she taps to go out when she needs to go out but she also taps to go out for a whole host of other reasons, most of which are hedonistic. Strangely, she often loses interest as soon as she’s set foot outside the door if we don’t follow her. It’s a bit odd really because we never play outside at night but she never, ever gives up hope that one day we might go out in the pitch dark and play tennis ball. This is despite the fact that she played tennis ball earlier in the field until she couldn’t stand up any more.

You can see how persistent she is by the smears over the door where she’s constantly tap, tapping and snot, snotting. It’s a regular feature of our evenings here during winter. In the summer, when the weather is nice, the door is open and she sits just inside it as happy as anything. It’s obviously just a thing about being “outside” but the door open with her on the inside is good enough! That’s my girl.