The day starts at 7am, with either Steve or I struggling to get out of our bed because we are pinned down by one or more of the Scotties.

Once we’ve managed to extricate ourselves, it’s a race to the kitchen for breakfast. Only after feeding will they venture outside to do their ablutions. If its raining none of the dogs will go out unless one of us goes first!

The funny thing about this is that when out walking our Scotties will make a bee-line for the wettest and muddiest puddle around, or paddle in the streams we walk by, but try and get them in the garden on a wet day – it’s impossible.

We live in a village on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border and have an abundance of walks to choose from without having to drive for miles. Having said that though, we often travel up to Scarborough because the beach there is wonderful for the dogs to race up and down and as its several miles long there’s plenty of racing to do!

When we’re not beach combing we spend time in the garden waiting for some unsuspecting person to walk by. At this stage the dogs compete with each other to see who can make the most noise possible whilst Steve or I struggle to make them quiet. Living in a village though, everyone has come to expect the explosion of noise when they walk by our bungalow.

After all the barking and patrolling up and down the fence the Scotties then retire to the rear garden, where its less distracting for both human and dog. A slurp or two of water, wetting the kitchen floor in the process and then back out to watch the passage of time. Dinner time arrives at about 6pm where there’s the mad race again to eat the food as quickly as possible and then we all settle down for a couple of hours in front of the TV. They Scotties have their own individual favourite chair so you have to be quick to get settled down before they descend upon you. In the summer the kitchen door seems to be open 24 hours a day for them to come and go as they please and they do! However in the dark months they are happy enough to be curled up on our laps throughout the evening. With a bit of strong encouragement we can get them out in the garden for their “bedtime tiddles” 0efore all of us race back to the bedroom to get the best spot on the bed.

Morning dawns and the whole happy procedures starts anew. Oh, to be a scottie . . .