Water, water, everywhere

I'll never forget the look on a friend's face when, after a long, hot walk with our dogs, I pulled out a white china bowl from Habitat and a bottle of mineral water from the car and poured Ruben a drink. In my defence, the bowl was old, chipped and always kept in the car as a dog bowl and the water was left over from an all too rare visit to the gym.

However it did get me thinking about water. It goes without saying that you refresh a water bowl throughout the day but every dog I know would much rather drink out of a puddle or stream than his own bowl. It's obviously the natural way for them to drink and I always think tap water must taste and smell even more chemically to a dog than it does to us. So I've now got into the habit of refilling Ruben's bowl with filtered water from the jug in the kitchen as well as setting down a few bowls here and there in the garden to catch rainwater.

Some dogs are very odd though. I used to own a florist shop and every day Jasmine, a very sweet staffie, would come racing in to drink out of one the flower buckets. Her owner said it was her favourite.

Then there was a cocker spaniel called Libby, who would only ever drink out of the glass of water I took to bed. Still makes me feel a bit queasy when I think about how long she'd been doing it before I noticed.......