Calendar girl (and boy)

I've mentioned before that Holly is much more relaxed and happy as a single dog than she was sharing our time and attention with Gravel. I guess that Gravel would have voted for single occupancy as well, if he'd had the opportunity.

Margaret is able to walk one dog more easily than two and, as a result, she and Holly are getting out much more. Last week, they were in the park with two other Springer owners - Nick Saunders, who has two dogs, and the chap who cuts the grass and does odd jobs around the village. He had a Springer that went everywhere with him, but it died earlier this year and now he has another young dog.

Those three and Holly made quite a sight all charging after the ball and Holly winning most of the chases. Bringing back the tennis ball is her specialist subject.

She was bringing the ball back to Nick and normally when she brings it back to us, she offers it up to us in her mouth and we take it out with our fingers. When she approached Nick, he used the command "dead" and Holly dropped the ball at his feet.

He told Margaret that it was a command that gun-dog trainers used and we know that Holly did have some gun-dog training in Ireland, but she's had a few years and a couple of different homes since then. It's astonishing, but there's no other explanation other than she has remembered the command.

Margaret tried it with her in the garden and it worked there as well.

I did it with her when she had her monkey toy in her mouth in the kitchen and she ignored me. Perhaps it only works for tennis balls, or perhaps that's why she was thrown out of gun-dog school.

It made us wonder what other commands she might know. Inna thought that perhaps if we said "dance" she would jump up on her hind legs and do a little jig ... unlikely.

We learned that Holly and Gravel had made it into the CAESSR (Cocker and English Springer Spaniel Rescue) calendar for 2014 thanks to some really nice photos taken by Tom. Holly was on the front cover with a picture of her retrieving a tennis ball from the sea at Wells-next-the-Sea on New Year's Day and Gravel was in twice - a small picture of him in the sea and also a large picture of him with a woodpigeon in his mouth.

A picture of Gravel lying in the garden, taken with a fish-eye lens Tom hired for Max's wedding, was also used for a greetings card.

Of course, everyone is getting CAESSR calendars for Christmas this year - we ordered 10 and Margaret has already given them to Joyce and my sister (a very early Christmas present).