Dog’s road trip costs us fortune

CHALKY, our Jack Russell, decided to take a walking holiday rather than relax at home like the other dogs.

Maybe it was adventure, maybe food, love, or perhaps just a change of scenery.

Either way her attack of wanderlust via some classic local beauty spots culminated in a costly minibreak at a kennel facility somewhere in foreign climes (not Swaledale).

She must have used room service and plundered the minibar. We met the dog warden at Keld for the handover of one small white terrier to me and one hefty cheque to him. Clemmy and Annas were happy to have her

For Chalky back and Chalky wallowed in their cuddles and strokes made all the more pleasant by the fact that she now smelt of roses rather than foisty dog. Seeing the children so happy made me think that, as the advert says, she was worth it!

Our sheepdogs are enjoying a well earned rest after lambing and mooching about around the kennels.

The animals are all grazing in the pastures or away at the moor hopefully enjoying the freedom and peace.

They need sunshine on their backs and to regain condition after lambing and only then it will be time to clip them.

The grass in the meadows is growing but it will be at least a month before we even think about trying to make hay as the wildflowers must reseed and the birds finish nesting.