Our house sitting routine with the four Springer Spaniels does not vary much from day to day.

After feeding the dogs when they wake me up, (yes they are my alarm clock but if it is too early they only get to go out for a pee and then they must wait until after 6am). I have had a few bad mornings with them waking me up as early as 12.45am, then again at 3am and again at 4.30am. They seem to go back to sleep – but I find it difficult. Luckily most mornings it is around 6.00am.

Anyway, once they are fed, the three girls come up stairs and fall into a very deep sleep for at least 2 – 3 hours. The dog who is the wake-up-barker, Paddy, stays downstairs in his bed for a few more hours.

Nothing further needs to be done until the afternoon walk time. So it is pretty easy.

Because Ella has a bandaged leg she is unable to go on the walks, so the difficulty comes in coaxing her downstairs into her bed while we load the other three in the back of the car and head a few minutes away so we can take them for an off-the-lead walk. Although hunting season (for the wild pigs – sanglier) has commenced, we have not had to share our wooded area with them as yet.

Paddy is over-excited before we leave the front yard and he barks almost non-stop until we arrive at the start of our walk – thank goodness it isn’t too far!!.

Mick then carefully lets them out of the back of the car, leaving Paddy to last because he goes nuts: there is no other word to describe it. He spins around and around and barks and barks, usually in front of his sister Blossom who tries to stay behind either me or Mick so she does not have to be intimidated by him.

Often Paddy grabs a stick during this ‘warm-up’ activity, and yesterday he grabbed Mick’s walking pole.

Take a look at this short (3 sec) video of him running around going nuts with it.

Then, without the stick but with the barking (3 secs)!!.

Once he gets that out of his system, we start the ‘real walk’, and sometimes Mick and I stop to collect some blackberries which are growing beside the first part of the walk.

Mick stops the group every now and then to give them a treat, and to make sure he still has them all. We have started to put two of the dogs on leads for the next part, so they avoid getting in the mud pool. The mud was very hard to get off the dogs even using the hose. And, actually they don’t miss it. Once past the temptation, off the leads again and the dogs are free to roam while Mick and I walk watching our steps as the forest floor is not a proper walking trail.

There are two further water holes for the dogs to take a swim in along the walk, and without fail, two of the three spend lots of time in them.

During the course of the rest of the walk which takes us through lots of bracken and long grasses, they dry off quite a bit.

On a few occasions there have been casualties.

Springer Spaniels are good hunters; Rosie, the oldest, is the best. She has found and caught a few moles during the walks. The owner warned us that this occurs and explained that although the dogs like to catch moles, they do not like to eat them. Sadly, the moles don’t survive once they have been caught. Mick has had to try to get the mole from whichever dog has it, and then try to dispose of it in a place that is too high for them to get it – the dogs like to just walk around with the poor mole in their mouths.

Mick has not always been successful though. The dogs have a keen sense of smell and quite often one of them finds it the next day, when it is even smellier, and poor Mick has to repeat the process.

As the walk draws to an end, Paddy starts to get excited again as he knows what comes next.

There is a long stretch where it is Mick’s job to throw tennis balls to them so they run and run and wear themselves out.

The only dog who plays the game properly is Paddy. When he gets the ball he returns it. One of the others will return it in exchange for a treat, but the third one, when she has had enough of the running around, refuses to give it up until it is time to get back into the car.

This part of the walk lasts around 10 minutes (unless Rosie gets the ball and we have to finish sooner), making the whole activity about 45-50 minutes. That seems to be all the exercise they get normally. But, the ball-chasing activity is pretty exhausting.

Once back at home, I spend at least 20 minutes brushing all four dogs, as I don’t like to leave Ella out of this treat, to remove the burrs and dried mud, before they are allowed back inside to …

…get back onto the lounges to sleep or rest until it is time for their dinner.