This is another ill-fated attempt to get a shot of JDs mucky chops I ended up with a whole load of shots of him carting this enormous stick towards me while I was backing off and backing off trying to get an appropriately framed shot. So, an inappropriately framed shot (doctored), no eyes and overblown highlights, all feature in today’s less-than-spectacular photo.

There are lots of things inappropriate about today’s photo, not least the fact that JD has a stick. I know, I know, you’re not supposed to let them have sticks any more. It’s true I get the shudders every time I hear a story of a dog getting skewered by one but in a reverse of the spectacular truism “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink”, the same is true of “you can tell a dog it can’t have a stick but you can’t force it to understand the dangers of getting skewered by the same”. So, I am a BAD PERSON.And the truth is that dogs just LOVE sticks.

Today this “stick”, half of which is NOT in the picture, has been chucked at me a million times today(conservative estimate), around 500,000 of these chucks came from JD and the other 500,000 came from Lola. I have been thumped on the shins at least a dozen times by a dog who hasn’t worked out the dimensions of said “stick”. I have laughed like a drain at Lola trying to get through the gap between the hen house and the veggie garden (AKA wilderness) fence also because of a lack of understanding of the laws of physics on her part. Still she may “only” be a dog but she is a Collie, which makes her bright enough to try it once then abandon the plan as a dead loss. On the other side of the narrow gap she realises that there is another stick…another million sticks in fact. So, she leaves behind the big one and finds another tempting morsel to lob at my feet hoping for a rise.

Sadly for them, my fertile imagination brings up vivid images of skewered dogs every time they present me with one and therefore I cannot bring myself to throw them. They have to come back with a ball in order to achieve their aim! From the wholly inappropriate to the appropriate in one easy step.