Mrs Down's Diary February 18 2009

"Are you sure that dog has been working this season" a friend asked when he came to stay for the last shoot. He had come over from Shropshire and had actually brought a thin, distant relative of Holly, with him.

Holly has had a successful season picking up but she has also had a successful season at her second favourite obsession. Eating. Holly is obsessed with food. She is greedier than the greediest Labrador we have ever had. And that is saying something for we have owned, and still do, some very greedy dogs in out time. But Holly is the most skilled, most speedy and most audacious thief of any dog we have had.

As a puppy fed on the waste sweepings and last drops of milk from the milking parlour (that was when we had dairy cows) she developed a taste for the good things in life. Later she realised no-one could resist her party piece of bounding onto chair, then table, to give the dishes a quick pre-dishwasher wash, in-situ.

When she because too big for that trick (and clumsy, the cost of replacing dinner plates rose exponentially as her girth increased) she adopted a range of underhand tactics. Cleaning the plates in the dishwasher itself when the door was down, nosing the badly fitting fridge door open and raiding the contents, lurking underneath grandchildren's high chairs to gently lift choice morsels from tiny fists.

All the dog food has to be in tightly fitting bins, as does any milk powder and poultry feed (do not know why). Leave the car boot open after you have been shopping and before you bring the shopping in at your peril. Or the shopping's peril at least.

Any food thrown out for the guinea fowl and hens is immediately snaffled. Scraps that should be shared amongst all the dogs, consumed by one. Her Hollyness.

But best of all, Holly thinks, is when Meg's son George, a strapping great Labrador of four years old, comes to stay. He brings with him bags of premium dog biscuits and trays of premium cans of dog food. All so much tastier and delicious than anything she gets offered from the plain agricultural merchant run of dog biscuits we provide.

George, who lives a life of pampered ease, has not been used to sharing his food with any other dogs. Unlike any Labrador we have had, he does not rush to gobble up his biscuits and meat, and will even leave them overnight untouched. The minute all the dogs are let out in the morning Holly is in.

Nothing can deter her from cleaning every last morsel out of his bowl. George never demurs, snarls, growls or barks. Just lets her pile on the pounds and steal the lot. No hope at all for her. She is the only dog on the shoot that finished the season fatter than when she started.