Hunter

When he was small, he disdained petting and wasn't even too keen on being brushed or fussed. Clipping his claws takes a staff of four and we've given up. But now, he stands still to have his claws filed down because, as one of his vetinary team - yes really - observed, his long side claws are causing him pain in his joints. So now he allows us to file those down and he's come to like it. In fact, I do believe he's starting to demand it. Sometimes we put heat onto his joints and he's come to ask for that now. But sometimes when he visits the vet he cries out in pain, something that he's never done before.

For a long time he's come to sleep against me if I lie on the floor. Unfortunately I have arthritis too, and so I don't often do that these days. It's become a standing joke that his treatment is better than mine. He has hydrotherapy, doggy physio, laser therapy and high end arthritis drugs that the NHS wont give me. Not that I'm jealous, you understand. I can articulate my pain and find strategic pathways around it - or so I'm told. He can't, and that's true. He can't understand and if a squirrel must be expelled from the Night Planted Orchard then sobeit and hang the consequences.

It troubles me that I don't know what he thinks about these things. I have often suspected that he sees the winter as some kind of punishment that god-like humans have visited on him. He certainly does recognise the spring in some way and even comes and waits by the lounge doors, which never opens in wintertime, instead of taking the long walk through kitchen and conservatory. He loves the spring warmth and the chance to roll in the grass while it's spiky and the ants aren't yet running. So I often wonder what he thinks about pain, if he thinks about it at all. We can certainly take it away in some circumstances and I sincerely hope that he doesn't believe that we've brought it on him.

He has hip end elbow dysplasia. A finding that devastated his breeders, who are the antithesis of puppy farmers so much that they stopped breeding labs thereafter. But even in the best lines, where hard work has been done to eliminate these problems, they still crop up from time to time, as with any dog.

All of this is not to say that he's decrepit or miserable. He's fit. He loves to swim. Occasionally a new vet will tut at us that he's a kilo overweight but he's probably the leanest lab I know, at least for his age. He still runs. We've even been told that stopping him jumping ever, with the best intentions, is probably too much and his exercises now put strain on his back legs. He's also smart as a whip. Not collie-smart, but he has the cunning of a fox. He will play games with us and he knows when we're going to do something he doesn't like. He's even learned - from me - to pretend that there is a squirrel or a cat in the garden.

He's also a particular character. He's not dominant, but loves to play with other dogs. Even as he slows down, we have to stop him being too full on with other dogs. He is a big boy, after all, and still packs a playful punch. He's not fully confident and when a stray Rottie wandered into the garden, lovely as it was, he hid under the stairs. He is, however, the declared mortal enemy of snails and slugs - squirrels - cats - hedgehogs.