Dog with Webbed Feet!

Now that I live in the North, I have started to miss the Somerset-based Art Group I so enjoyed. A succession of events organisers would produce a programme of outdoor painting days that must have been the envy of other art societies. Every Friday, throughout the Summer, we would go to a different location - often Manor Houses that were not open to the public - and paint and draw to our content. Sadly, I have yet to find an art group in my part of Lancashire, but live in hope.

It was at once such property that I got the shock of my life. I was sat in my camping chair painting a watercolour of a shallow channel of water and its strikingly green bank. I heard a splashing noise behind me and nearly fell out of my seat. Racing through the water in my direction was what looked, at first glance, like a small bear!

Much to my relief, it turned out to be an Irish Water Spaniel. They are a water-loving breed and, I understand, a devil of a job to keep the coat clean and unknotted. They are web-footed to make them stronger swimmers and are one of a number of breeds that have webbed feet. Not a lot of people know that, as Michael Caine was fond of saying!