Something indescribably dirty, disheveled ---- and frightened, turned up at the bottom of the drive one rainy day. After an hour of patient coaxing by Rick, we had him in the house, and in our arms. He was a shapeless mass of tangled fur, twigs and excrement. Out came the sheep shears, away fell all the matted coat, and a poodle was revealed!

The gendarmes of St.Astier stopped to investigate a suspicious-looking polythene sack in the road. In it was Little Joe Brown… and his eight brothers and sisters! We lovingly bottle-raised them from 2-weeks old, re-homed them when they were weaned, but kept Little Joe - our 'baby'…. a baby who grew and grew and GREW! Little Joe doesn't know if he's a dog or a donkey!

The unwanted offspring of an accidental mating, Merlin at a year old was branded as a 'killer-horse' and was cruelly whipped to the ground by his owners. In truth, he is an extremely gentle and comical character who has generously decided to forgive and forget.

Molly is a ragamuffin fox-terrier who reminded us so much of our late and much beloved Manon that we couldn't NOT keep her! Sometimes we mistakenly even catch ourselves calling her Manon. And there is, after all, a weird connection. Molly was brought into the Vet's surgery as an abandoned puppy, on the very afternoon we said goodbye to dear old Manon. Call it fate!

Petal has soft, doe eyes, and the waggiest tail in the business. But when we found her at the S.P.A. shelter, it was a different story. Her thick white fur was sparse, her skin itchy and sore. Her babies had been taken away at birth, and she was anxious and dispirited. Now she’s happy and full of fun. Her favourite things are cuddles, hosepipes and children’s sticky mouths.

One of our hunting neighbours was in the habit of allowing his other dogs to eat the newborn puppies of Pandy’s mother. He owed us a small service, so we pleaded with him to allow the traumatised bitch to raise just one litter. And so Pandora and her sisters were spared. Pandy is of the noble French hunting breed, the ‘Ariégeois’, but ‘game’ for her means chasing Petal, and she infinitely prefers chocolate mousse to rabbit.

Despite his humble origins - he was born, semi-feral, in a wood-pile - Brumus is a real 'aristocat'; affable, polite, always immaculately white. 'Can't wait for the snow' he says, 'those mice can't see me coming!' (Actually, he's a lousy hunter..... )