The eagle-eyed amongst the viewers of this photo will notice something about those two dogs, both of them looking angelic and cute. One of them is tethered. Yep – JD is tied to David’s leg and the reason for this is that we have discovered something about him since we’ve been on holiday.

Until this week, we’d thought JDs only real problem was wild barking and hurling himself at our front door when we had visitors. We thought we’d find a way of coping with that because let’s face it, he can’t do any harm to someone through glass can he? In our home and our local surroundings, he behaves like a model dog. He’s a sweet, kind and nice as any dog I’ve ever had. What we didn’t really think about was that we live a very isolated life and while we get out and about in the fresh air and the wilds of nature a lot, we don’t really meet many people while we’re walking with him.

This week we’ve discovered a side to his character that’s considerably down the scale from model dog and goes very definitely into the realms of unwanted behaviour. He’s very scared of people – he’s completely fine with animals of all sorts – both farm animals and pet dogs but he’s not at all happy around lots of people.

Sadly this can lead to two types of behaviour and it would seem and he’s a “fight” rather than “flight” dog. In other words, when he meets someone coming towards him, he charges up to them barking like a mad thing rather than hiding behind us. Clearly this is NOT good or desirable behaviour hence him being on a lead while Rosie (who isn’t afraid of anything except carrier bags, lambs and David’s sneezing – don’t ask us why those things terrify her but they do) is running free.

When we get home, there will be an extensive search for a way to bring about a change in this behaviour and until the time when we can be sure that he’s really changed we’re going to have to keep him on a lead.

All of that aside, he’s sat (with DM and Rosie) at the base of Aber Falls on the northern edge of Snowdonia, one of the most spectacular falls that we have here in the UK. It’s quite a walk from the nearest place you can get a car so he’s had a good walk and he’s done a bit of paddling.

…..it’s just a shame that he managed to terrify a poor German tourist before we realised the need to keep him on his lead……….