On Edge

[trekmoor]

Forth Estates - 2 p.m. - Cloudy and a bit cold.

Dogs - Edge and Billy.

I left the lab pup to Charlie's tender care out in the kennel and since I felt better today I took Edge out for the first time in weeks. Old Billy the cocker was prancing about at the garden gate and almost doing somersaults in his eagerness to go too ....so I took him !

Once there I just took the dogs for a walk along where the burn flows through a sort of heavily wooded ravine just before it enters the sea. It's a pig of a place just to walk along , fallen trees galore and rocky outcrops with some high drops down into the burn below. That burn although seldom more than 20 feet wide can be very dodgy when in flood especially during the winter. It was O.K. today, I saw no pools more than 3-4 feet deep among the very fast flowing water.

Old Billy just loves water ....of any kind. He has a habit of lying flat out on his side in water of 6-12 inches depth and allowing the water to float him along. He was doing this today in water of up to 2 feet deep that was a bit more than just fast flowing. I was a bit worried he'd get into trouble but he surfed down the burn, still somehow remaining on his side, with his silly old head's jaws lifted up and spread wide in a grin of pure enjoyment ! The auld fool !

Edge enjoyed himself too , he charged all over the place searching in vain for the cock pheasants he could hear calling up nearer to the top of the ravine. No problem there with Billy.....he is now as deaf as a post. Edge went into the burn many times but never deeper than his belly. He swims just fine but he is nothing like auld Billy where water .....or really thick brambles are concerned.

I got back to the car after what was , for me, a gruelling 600 yards marathon walk and Edge waited until I arrived at the car and then jumped in. Billy is deaf but he's not daft. He carried straight on for another 40 -50 yards and then vanished into a steep, deep gulley chock to the eyeballs with brambles and thorn bushes that most dogs ....including spaniels.....give a wide berth to. Billy emerged again about 3-4 minutes later with a present for me .....a nice, healthy and very indignant looking cock pheasant ! Billy has a mouth like a velvet glove so I gave the bird a quick check over then placed it down on the ground. It flew off at once much to Billy's annoyance after all his hard work catching it for me !

Wullie