A clean dog is a bored dog.

I got my two dogs out of the car today and a neighbour commented that they looked like they had had a good time. She wasn't wrong; they were both brown rather than their natural black and grey.

Even though we've not had any rain all week, our usual walks are still very muddy- I foolishly ventured out without wellies on today and am not sure how I'm going to get my trainers clean again.

But the dogs were easy enough to deal with; the big one went in the shower upstairs and the little one in the bath. Both of them seemed to tolerate rather than enjoy their ablutions. No doubt they have memories of a couple of weeks ago when they come home so plastered in mud, that I had no choice but to hose them down before I let them in the house. None of us enjoyed that experience.

On the work front, I've been mainly vaccinating regulars which is always nice. I had a phone call yesterday from a man with a sick bird who I suggested see a local vet with an avian interest. I must ring him and see if the client ever contacted him. I know a little about birds and am fine handling them, but this bird sounded really ill and probably required someone with more knowledge and resources than me. The trouble with birds is that they often don't look sick until they are very sick, so I always tend to take these sort of calls very seriously.