Hmmmm. Microsoft Word insists that if you type walkman you must mean the brand – it automatically gives you a capital W.

Today the walking boots didn’t get used (hence the rolled up pair of clean socks in the top) because I’ve been a workman all day long. It may seem like a disgraceful admission to many but we don’t necessarily walk our dogs every day. We know and appreciate they need exercise and to be kept busy but on days when we are working in and around the garden and we throw a million tennis balls in many, many different directions with different levels of ingenuity and effort needed to extract the ball from where it was thrown, we feel we have done our job without a formal walk.

OK, OK, I will admit that the “many, many different directions with different levels of ingenuity and effort” is more the product of me being basically crap at throwing more than a real ability to target my shots but I stand by the point of view that it’s what the dogs have to achieve that delivers their mental and physical exercise.

I saw someone on Countryfile talking about how Collies get abandoned because they don’t get enough to do. Ours get so much to do that they sometimes (though rarely) mooch off into the house for a snooze. Lola is much like Rosie was in as much as she NEVER gives up on the chance of a tennis ball being thrown! Is that enough to do? I reckon so…