Our dogs keep running in in and out of the garden through the patio doors. When it's really cold they go out to do what they have to do (do I have to describe everything? Use your imagination) and generally shoot back in when they've finished. I have a plastic box with doggy treats in, and if I shake it they know that if they come in they'll both get a treat. Poppy can do her standing-on-her- backlegs and-begging trick, looking very cute and so on and so forth. Alfie is a little more crafty and doesn't do tricks to get a treat. Last evening Poppy went out and in the long grass near the shed there was a sort of scuffling. She had found a hedgehog which had wandered into the garden. She was growling at it and tried to pick it up, but hedgehogs won't be beaten by anything and it did the old rolling into ball trick and I had to get her away from the poor thing and a good deal of shouting at her got her to leave it alone. She came in the house and I went back about five minutes later and the hedgehog had gone, no doubt vanished through one of the holes in the fence and presumably found a safe and warm place to sleep underneath the trees that line the Medway behind the house or one of our neighbours' gardens. I think Poppy got a face full of hedgehog prickles as a result. But I really didn't want her to hurt the poor thing which was only trying to find somewhere to sleep the night.
