For the first three weeks Maude showed a fairly high degree of interest in them, until she realised that they didn't do any tricks or learn to speak English. I thought she was probably the dog that would never be taken so I said, "Sod it, never mind my big brown dog, I'll take her home.

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They're a pretty basic animal and only do about four things, most of which you have to clear up afterwards so there isn't that much entertainment value in them.When she was a puppy she had to have massive operations to fix her hips and knees, which meant she got a bit spoilt. I've never been a particularly pro-pet person: I'm very much an urban soul and I'm really not convinced that animals and cities go all that well together. We've made a rod for our own backs in that there's a two-tier system whereby Mary is treated like royalty and the rest of us scrabble around for what's left. I took my Alsatian, Winck, with me and we came across Lottie who was clearly in the most desperate need.

Me and My Pets Medium Twin Raised Feeding Bowl

I don't like to make Nifty look ridiculous but she does have stage outfits – so she has a little diamanté hoodie and a little diamond harness and I have roses to put around her neck. The last time I went there I knew exactly what I wanted, which was a large brown dog, like a Rhodesian ridgeback or a Hungarian pointer. All my dogs sleep on the bed and once you get dogs sleeping together you know that everything is going to be all right. With three dogs there's a lot of walking, but we've got quite a lot of land so they are all pretty fit. I always make sure they've got nice fresh food as well as their dried food – what they like most, like good middle-class girls, is parsley and coriander.For some decades now I've been getting my dogs from the Mayhew Animal Home and Lottie is number four.

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First of all we bought them a little house to live in that wasn't very nice and, me being a sucker for these things, we ended up getting a specially commissioned house. She's also the less nervous of the two so she's usually the first one to come and get her food; she makes a slightly plangent chirrup. Me and my pet Rebecca Armstrong meets the style guru who fell for a guinea pig, the burlesque performer who loves to show off her favourite asset, the art critic who can't resist a rescue dog . From running away every time I said, "Boo", she's now all over me and spends an enormous amount of time on her hind legs holding on to me with her forepaws and pretending to be a three-year-old child. I've always had dogs, I had lots of Jack Russells when I was a child but Nifty is by far the smallest dog I've had.He lives in Dorset with his wife Philippa and daughter Emily and their horses, chickens, three dogs and a cat. And through the underfelt and into the floor of the cottage we're camped in at the moment while our house is being rebuilt. Sometimes if I take her for a walk and it's really busy, a lot of people don't actually see her so I have to pick her up because she might get squashed. Dogs are wonderful because they don't care what one looks like first thing in the morning and they're easy to live with.