Boot camp for corgis

[an agapanthus in its natural element]

Shortly before leaving on our trek through the Western Cape, Vince and I took the two corgis and Ben the labrador on one of their last walks with us, revisiting the walk I'd done with Marijke, weeks before, on the Silvermine Crags. It hadn't been a complicated walk, so maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Anyway, I managed to lose the path, with the result that we bundubashed for quite a while before happening upon it again. Fine for us long-legged creatures. But if you are a compact corgi with a low-slung undercarriage (Vettetjie, you know I'm talking to you...), it is a trial. The poor things were game until we entered a minefield of large sandstone boulders, from which they had to be bodily plucked and airlifted. Then much bounding was necessary, and then a lot of ducking.

Once the path had been regained Vince found for them a rock pitted by the weather into lots of convenient little water bowls, and we gave them our water.

Slurrrrp, sluuuuuuurp!!!! You're killing us here! We're not bloody goats, we're lapdogs! Wannabe then...

But then: Ted's reward. For some reason unfathomable, this dog, who is averse to movement of most kinds, loves water. Once we were down in the basin of mountains again, he found this mudhole (to which Ben had thoughtfully introduced him last time) next to the perfectly clean reservoir.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. That's more like it!

I am the dirtiest corgi, with the longest tongue in the world.

In the car on the way home...

I need a pill...