Wednesday 24 November 2010

A Tale Of Two Hounds and The Sea ( or A Soggy Dog Story)


How apt that I should finish this painting of Lunil and Bil for Freyalynn the day before I left to take my own two dogs to the ocean. But that wasn't quite the original plan......

Poor Magpie cut her leg open a couple of weeks ago, and had to have several stitches, which meant she was made to wear 'the cone of shame' for a whole fortnight while they healed. She was very sorry for herself, wondering what terrible offence she might have committed, to have been punished in this way. As the removal of her collar coincided with our plans to visit a (non-doggy) friends holiday cottage on the beach for a few days, we had a wonderful idea. Magpie (short - haired, impeccably well-behaved, and very much in need of feeling like an 'only' dog for a little bit) could come too, and Daisy (good-natured, but whichever way you look at it, a bouncy, exuberant, water-loving mud monster) could go visiting by herself for a few days!
We congratulated ourselves on our great plan, and gleefully prepared for our holiday. On the morning we were due to leave, I took Daisy for a walk and play with her great friend Teddy, a German Shepherd of the same age, to wear her out. They raced, and tumbled, and rolled, through the peat bog, and through the muddy wallows, and over the muck heap, and this was the resultant state of her!

Thinking I couldn't possibly leave her with someone else in this state, I dragged her into the bathroom and showered her. This is where I shot myself in the foot.
Daisy emerged, clean, sweet-smelling and wonderfully fluffed up ( but distinctly unimpressed!)
and we set off for Cornwall without her. Unfortunately, her bath meant that over the course of the day her coat began to moult in enormous handfuls, until the house was awash with fluff, and she was not a welcome visitor anywhere.
So Daisy was fetched, and to her great delight, joined us at the beach.


She drank seawater and made herself sick,


played in mermaid's pools,



and galloped up and down empty windswept beaches



chasing seagulls. In short she did everything the children did, and had an absolute whale of a time, as did they.


Pie glumly put up with being bounced on by a large wet and sandy Tigger.
Steve and I and my sister spent our waking hours hoovering floors and washing mud spatters from the walls to try and erase all traces of Daisy's exuberant presence. Lovely as it was to have a break, it's nice to be home where a bit of dog hair doesn't matter!

8 comments:

Julia Guthrie said...

Hehe... the cone of shame. We need to get Nimh on of those as she's made a nasty hotspot on her leg that she won't leave alone. She will hate it...

That looks like my kind of beach tho :)
xxx

Karen said...

Lucky, lucky, happy dogs!

Kath said...

What lovely photos and what a glorious beach. I did smile at how you described the 2 dogs different natures, my Brother nick-named my 2 dogs, "Angel" and "Beelzebub" which sums them up really.

Bovey Belle said...

Sounds like everyone had a really wonderful time at the beach, even if it meant a bit of cleaning up afterwards . . .

Freyalyn said...

Lunil and Bil adore beaches - I wish we had one within easy reach. We equally distant from both Morecambe and Whitby.

Oh, the collar of shame....

MEME said...

I LOVE YOUR BLOG! I LIVE IN TEXAS WHERE DOGS AND HORSES ARE A WAY OF LIFE,I'M GLAD TO SEE ITS YOURS ASLO! I LOVE YOUR ARTWORK TO!

Virginia said...

What a great holiday - especially for the dogs - pity about having to clean up after them though! I can't get over how much hair my son's Golden Retriever manages to leave at our place every time she visits! I've now bought a vacuum cleaner with a head specially designed to deal with dog hair. It's still hard work though.

Gail H. Ragsdale said...

The cone of shame...I had a cat who had to wear one for 3 months. Not a happy cat.

Loved the beach photos, especially the Mermaid pool. How cool.

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