I knew that Shiloh had retriever in his blood. But I didn’t fully appreciate the impact of his ancestors.

At first it was cute (and to be honest it mostly still is). He is BORN to retrieve.

Socks, long ago given up on, appear in the middle of the sitting room. Plastic bottles not quite closed into the bin lay strewn in no longer ‘recyclable’ chunks across the lawn. Dressing gown robe ties are picked up muddy and soggy in the middle of the flower bed. The ceramic cats bowl lies upside down on the deck. Don’t even get me started on shoes.

I have lost count of the number of propeller pencils (my preferred way of noting in my diary) that I have retrieved (chewed, mangled and half buried in my garden). And I have almost had to go into overdraft to keep up my supply of erasers. My new prescription glasses (in the expensive frames I had been promising myself for about 2 years) were gently removed from Shiloh’s fair jaw when a crunching sound alerted us. Shiloh was fine. The glasses were not.

Now I know what you are thinking. Where are the rules? Where is the discipline? And how on earth does he GET half this stuff. Well let’s just leave your question there because I promise you…we try.

All of these antics are a mixture of annoying, horrifying and adorable (not in that order). But he’s so proud – so very very trotting, happily, proud every time he manages to retrieve something. And also, Shiloh is teaching me things. For instance : he’s teaching me to be tidier

One morning, I was approaching the top of the stairs when I saw a pair of my knickers on the top stair. Quelle horreur!

Now I know what you are thinking and it’s something to do with a late night and a bottle of wine. But NO! You would be wrong. It had more to do with the fact that my underwear drawer is the bottom drawer of my dresser and I have a habit of not closing it properly.

You would think that one incident of such nature was enough to forevermore teach me to close my dresser drawers properly – but NO – I needed another incident and this one’s a goody.

You see we are currently doing a renovation and have builders onsite. And these said builders were treated to the view of me racing across the lawn in my dressing gown, desperately trying to retrieve my best lace underwire bra from one adorable, fluffy, one of a kind. retriever labradoodle. It took a while! They could probably describe the item in detail to their wives.

Better work stories am I right?