Living with Alice

Meet Alice. She is a fine beast, who is always sure to make her presence (and desires) known. She shares a very large pen with three cockerels and a hen. Fastidious, willful and petulant, Alice thinks nothing of breaking down a fence or a door to get her way. Dogs disperse at high speed when Alice lumbers towards the kitchen door for breakfast. Only the young and uninitiated take her on. A nip on the ear or an attempt at the snout ends up in ear piercing yelps as Alice lunges her head sideways swiping the juvenile with her tusks.

On waking, Alice demands to be released from her pen. Everything in the house stops and we fly to let her out before the pen is destroyed. Immediately out of the pen, the flood gates open as Alice embarks on her ablutions. (She will never allow any bodily functions to take place within her pen.) Refreshed, she lumbers up to the kitchen door and grunts for breakfast.

In the winter, Alice sleeps under her ladybird blanket in the sittingroom. In the less cold months she is happy with a duck and cockerel down duvet in her house.

My Life with 20 Dogs (Sputnik)

Sputnik was never meant to happen: But we got home one day to find a maggoty ball of scabs curled up in a state beyond caring ... or even knowing. The entire night spent in my arms, the next day we were both scratching and scratching and scratching. This lasted for 2 months.

In the meantime Sputnik began to live again - and now we sometimes wish he was not quite so lively.

(Well, that was at least until last week when Sputnik came down with Biliary - a dangerous illness carried by ticks that attacks dogs. Poor Sputnik was ill for 5 days, no longer attacking shoes or bottoms of trousers - instead invallided to bed with a brain splitting migrain, and other terrible aches and pains. Dr Rens with two days of injections soon saw Sputnik over the worst, and he is now back to his spirited self.)

Recovering from a deadly migrain - do I or don't I!

Part Jack Russel, part Maltese, he has the worst and the best of both. There is nothing more fun that a game of "Moley-Moley" or "Hunt the Rodent"...

Since becoming human, Sputnik has progressively developed aliases - from Sputnik to Nik for short, then to Nicholas!!**! when he is bad, and St Nicholas when he is good - which is not very often.

Nik is self-assured and confident to the point of being cheeky. He is always ready to do more than his duty - at night choosing to sleep outside the fowlhouse, disciplining our insomiac and raving roosters into an uneasy nocturnal quietude.

My Life with 20 Dogs (and a Pig)

These are some of our family. We live in a small place called Penhill outside Cape Town in South Africa. Some people wonder how we can all get along together - but we do. From time to time things can get a little hairy - but on the whole we are a big happy family. Our house in Penhill is our refuge - where the sick, hungry and lost make up our home. The greater number of the household are dogs - that is if you do not count the mice in the garage and kitchen - and nobody has because there are just too many. If we were a democracy, the mice would rule - but as it stands we are a dogracy.

This is William. Just William, Willful William. He also goes by the name of Bill. A wicked sense of humour, there is nothing more fun than nipping another dog from behind to see what kind of reaction will be solicited - darting out of reach before the hapless victim can respond in kind. Sometimes William will nip a visitor - but that is just part of the fun. But what beats all wickedness is the borehole. There can be nothing more fun than killing a powerful writhing stream of water that will not succumb. This game can be played for hour after hour. Drenched, where better to dry off than the bed. And so sleep is permeated by the perfume of wet William...

Relaxing in the front garden, Fuggly is taking a moment from being the benign head of the household. He takes this responsibility for keeping the rest of the family in check seriously, but from time to time the call of a sunny Sunday afternoon is too much. Gentle and peace-loving, he keeps his paw on top of everything that goes on in the household - nudging any over- boisterous juvenile into line with a deep soft 'grughgh'.