It's all about the dog (pretty much)

My day started at 4am this morning. Hmm. Well, at least it was two hours later than yesterday's moonlight call, but this morning's starry toilet trip was heralded by a full-on big-belly woofing that rocked the house - there was no element of doubt as to whether Reggie had simply barked in his sleep or whether he really meant it: he really meant it. As I leapt out of bed and struggled in my sleepy daze to find some clothes to pull on, Stuart suggested I simply put his warm dressing gown on, so I grabbed it from the back of the bedroom door and sprinted downstairs, pulled on my wellies and took Reggie outside. While I waited for him to do his business I felt thankful both that it was dark and that we have no close neighbours - last night I had stood in the garden wearing a back-to-front hoodie and tonight I was standing in the garden wearing a dressing gown and wellies. It's all glamour here on our farm.

After Reggie had done plenty of toilet business (without wanting to go into details, I felt vindicated in having left my cosy bed - he really had needed to go to the loo), we both traipsed back up the steps and he settled back down in his bed, while I headed back to mine.

Three hours later and it was time to go through the whole routine again - except this time I also threw in feeding the cats, letting the geese out (and replacing their sawdust), feeding Reggie and taking him for a walk up and down the drive (and this time I managed to find some jeans and a right-way-round hoodie to wear while doing it - it was daylight by now, after all).

By the time Reggie had had a little play in the garden with his tennis balls, Stuart was just starting to wake up. We had breakfast and some coffee then got ourselves and Reggie ready to go into town. First we drove to Chiesina Uzzanese to refill the car with methane, then we drove back into town, parked up on one of the quieter side streets and headed to the stationery shop to collect Reggie's new name tag. The tag looked great and we put it straight on his collar. We half expected him to hate the new jangly sound it makes when he walks/runs and to try to get it off, but he seemed totally unbothered by his new piece of jewellery.

From there, we walked over to the bridge and dropped down onto the tow path. Reggie met lots of new dogs today - there were a couple that he just sniffed, a few that he completely ignored, and one or two that he seemed to want either to play with or to attack - our doggie behaviour radar is not yet sufficiently up to speed to work out whether his growling and attempt to lunge towards them is aggression or playfulness. We even walked past four cats, all of which he completely ignored. Why on earth can't he be like that with our cats?!!

We had a good walk along the river, and practised calling him with the whistle to come - he seems to love this particular training, and the sight of him coming charging towards you with his little ears pinned back and his tail waggling is an absolute delight. By the time we'd done that, though, we were conscious that he must be getting a bit tired and HOT. The sun was out this morning, and we were baking in our jeans and hoodies - it felt like a warm spring day, or even early summer, it must have been 20C at least. We took Reggie back to the car for a drink of water before loading him into his travel cage and journeying back home.

On the way back home we decided to stop off at Amanda's to see if she had something we could have for lunch. Time had marched on to almost 12.30pm and we were going to need to have some lunch before facing the supermarket shopping trip. We picked up some breaded calamari and some roasted potatoes from Amanda, with instructions to put them both in a hot oven to warm them through, then headed home.

Before doing anything else, I opened up the apartment to switch the oven on to warm. We still don't have a functioning oven in our house - Sue has given us a phone number for a guy who fixes things, and we keep meaning to get him to come and have a look at it, but when you have a wood to chop, wood to split, fences to construct, terraces to clear, a dog to train, office work to do, geese to clean out, cats to herd and so on... these things tend to slip to the bottom of the to-do list. (We need to get it sorted out before Christmas though!)

We let Reggie play with his ball in the garden while we waited for lunch to heat up, then put him safely (if noisily) in his cage while we ate in the glorious warm sunshine on the patio and started to put together a shopping list.

After taking Reggie out for a pre-emptive toilet trip then putting him back in his cage with a chew, we headed out to do the supermarket shopping. Once again, we did the double, stopping first at Lidl. When we pulled into the car park we noticed a collection of scouts (what is the collective noun for scouts? a woggle of scouts maybe?) around the entrance, all wearing yellow plastic bibs. Today appeared to be some sort of charitable giving day either in the whole of Italy or maybe just in Tuscany - when we'd been out with Reggie earlier, we had passed a gaggle of middle-aged folk standing outside the Coop wearing plastic bibs and standing next to what looked like food collection boxes. I'd also seen some pictures on Facebook of similar activity going on further south in the region. As we went to enter the shop, the scouts asked us to take a plastic bag for charitable donations. Since they were of school age, we asked them to explain in English (good practice for them, after all) what it was all about. They said they were asking people to buy food 'for the poor' - and said that they wanted flour and biscuits. To be honest, I've a feeling that 'flour and biscuits' wasn't exactly what they were after, but we took a bag anyway, and added a large bag of biscuits to our shopping trolley, which we subsequently thrust back at the scouts on our way out of the shop.

Next, we headed to Esselunga. On the way, I said to Stuart 'you realise that we're going to get nobbled by charity people here as well, don't you?'... but when we pulled into the car park, we were surprised to see a decided lack of yellow-bibbed charity collectors. We collected our trolley and headed into the shop - where of course the gaggle of yellow-bibbed volunteers were waiting. We took another bag from them and duly bought another large bag of biscuits to add to their collection of groceries.

Once we'd completed the shopping, we loaded the car up and headed back home to see what damage Reggie had done to the house while we'd been out (we weren't really expecting any, as he'd been in his cage, but you never know with this naughty pup). Of course, the house was in one piece and even peaceful and quiet when we got back, so we unloaded the shopping and got Reggie out to give him a proper training session in the garden.

We spent a good hour or so practising 'sit', 'stay' and 'come'. He really started to get the 'stay' command, which was brilliant progress. It's truly amazing and gratifying when you actually see some learning starting to happen. After a while though, he started to get distracted, so we let him play with his tennis balls for a while before putting him inside when the light started to show signs of fading.

With Reggie safely in his cage, the next objective was to get the cats safely indoors then put the geese to bed. I went out to call the cats, and Florence quickly came running across the roof of the woodshed. I scooped her up and put her safely indoors. Next, I called Lucca. Nothing. I called him a few more times, but there was no response. So I turned my attention to the geese.

Since Nick and Tess built their fantastic new ramps, the geese have spent their days alternating between the top terrace, their favourite (middle) terrace, and the lower terrace, and this evening they were on the lower one. It therefore took a bit of coaxing (i.e. lettuce-trail laying) to get them to move onto the correct terrace to be able to get them into their house. They eventually got there, but I had to go back for more lettuce in order to get them to cooperate and go into their house for the evening.

Once the geese were safely shut away, I turned my attention once again to Lucca. Stuart - who had been dismantling the construction that he and Nick had made as a temporary Reggie-proof gate for the steps before the fencing had been finished - packed his stuff away and joined me in calling Lucca and searching up the terraces, behind the woodpiles, along the drive, around the (former)rubbish shed - everywhere, but to no avail.

As the darkness started to descend, I became increasingly distraught. Inside the house there was barking, barking and more barking, and poor Florence's face was pressed up against the (locked for safety) cat flap, desperate to get away from the noisy monster. Meanwhile, I could neither see nor hear any signs of Lucca and had visions of him having packed his little knapsack and left home to get way from the barking ogre - but little did he realise that there are far more dangerous animals out in the dark woods. Just as I was entering absolute and utter despair (with full-on chin wobbling), I heard a faint 'maiooow', which was getting closer. I ran back towards the terraces and there was little Lucca coming down towards the house - FINALLY! I scooped him up and gave him the biggest hug I thought he would tolerate, before taking him safely indoors and giving both cats some treats.

With all animals safely inside for the night, we felt more than ready to settle down with a drink - tonight's weekend treat is Aperol spritz, with vegetable fajitas for dinner in front of the fire.

And... Relax.