Scamp was never originally a jumping dog. However, one day Holly and Eleanor set him to work jumping over a stick to see how high he could jump. I think maybe Eleanor had in the back of her mind the Country Fair we once went to where she saw dogs racing over jumps.
As the jumps got higher I was called in to hold the washing line pole over my knee while the girls concentrated on their protege.
Their training was obviously too good as the other day a neighbour rang the doorbell to say that Scamp was out in the street chasing cats. When I went to the back garden to see if this was true I found Scamp innocently chasing flies. The whole thing remained a mystery until I saw with my very eyes Scamp hurdling this very high back fence. Mark has put in place a grill to make it higher, although I notice he still attempts to jump this while chasing cats on the ground while they aerially traverse the fence and shed, through sheer force of habit, probably.
That's our car, a racing green Landrover Discovery. It did not look out of place among the country gentry's vehicles at the Fair.
4 comments:
Maybe he was escaping from the fairies - tee hee
But really, dogs can jump incredibly high, can't they? - particularly in pursuit of cats, squirrels, badgers...
When we applied to foster our dog, the lady from the Dogs' Trust came and looked at our place and told us we had to put fences up to 6 feet all round the garden, except the side walls which were already high enough and were fenced as well on one side. We did that, and we also put a gate in dividing one part of the garden from the other(which has a stream in it). This was considered acceptable, but one day I could hear him barking and couldn't find him. When I looked out of the window upstairs I saw him running up and down in the neighbours' garden - embarrassing. We put a fence up there too. He still used to escape, once he just ran through the gate (while closed) after a squirrel. We did all sorts. In the end we found out that he could, in fact do a standing jump straight on to the wall - then he ran along the wall and jumped over the fence - which was only a couple of feet higher anyway. Now we keep him in unless we are in the garden. I am afraid he will cause a road accident, as he is very very silly. The neighbour with the fences above the wall said she had to do that to keep their dog in, because he used to jump over into our garden and escape via the stream... now he squeezes under their fence and puts his nose sadly over our wall and barks at our dog... good entertainment value, dogs, but they do worry us...
The Jumping Dogs of Great Britain! Well I have a couple of jumpers myself. Both have terrier blood and I think that might be why. Blanche is very old now, but in her day she used to climb trees, well admittedly they were leaning, but she was very agile and determined to get those pesky squirrels. Since she has "retired" the squirrels reign again, but she gives them a chase anyway!
We got Tess from the RSPCA and we also had someone round checking us out. I like it when they do this, it shows what care is involved. When my friend got her dog they were even measuring the fence to see how high it was.
Bobbie, Tess is fifteen and a half but still manages to move surprisingly fast when she sees a cat.
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