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!

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.

Timmy found himself in the local pound - a dirty, matted castaway with no future. We would have liked to rehome him but he was elderly, sick and needed nursing. So we decided to take him in as a permanent resident… and it's amazing what a little love and security can do!

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..... )

When just a tiny pup, Taffy was abandoned at the local dog pound. The pound was shut, so Taffy was simply thrown over the wall. All grown-up, Taffy is now happy to take foundlings of any shape and size under his wing. "Trust me", he says, "I know what it's like to be an orphan!"

On death-row at the local pound, Wilf was just one kitten too many. One kitten too many for us too, but he won our hearts with his 'soggy-moggy' ways. Wilf definitely prefers the hearth to the hunt....luckily for the mice because, with his good looks, he could get away with murder!