Ralph explains the Twilight Bark on Exmoor

Hello again!

If you’ve ever seen (or read) 101 Dalmatians – possibly the scariest film ever – you’ll know all about the ‘Twilight Bark’, when dog friends contact each other across the world in the early evening with top news stories to be shared from home to home.  I think it’s a bit like the Six O’Clock News that humans watch on the big screens, but clearly they don’t understand what we dogs are doing – they probably think we’re just shouting, but actually it’s really important.  I mean, how else would those ninety-nine spotty puppies have been rescued if it hadn’t been for the Colonel’s listening skills?

Better use of English grammar…

During a recent Twilight Bark, the Border Collie from across the Exe Valley decided to teach us Dulverton and Exmoor locals a better use of English grammar.  Border Collies are exceptionally gifted dogs, as you’re probably aware, so goodness only knows why they spend such a lot of time around sheep.  Anyway, the lesson we learned that evening was all about the use of acronyms, which I have now decided to put into practice in my blog – and thus henceforth I shall be referring to my two humans as TOTCA (The One They Call Ali) and TOERAG (The One Earnestly [helping me] Renovate Ancient Granaries [and other buildings]).

I’m pleased to report that TOTCA and her friends from Kent had a fun weekend together, drinking wine and making a lot of noise.  She took them to see the work I’d done so far with the Piggery renovation project at Stockham Farm and they were all very impressed, particularly the digging I’d done at the side of the path – though TOERAG said that it wasn’t in the right place and it was a “bloody big hole”.  Does that mean he was impressed too, I wonder?

 

When I ate something I shouldn’t…

In amongst all the fun and excitement, however, I did something unwise – I ate something I shouldn’t.  It was an interesting grey blob that I’d found around the back of the stables with a delightful perfume of fox poo blended with dead mouse.  I wolfed it down without a care, but irritatingly my stomach began to gurgle and it came back up again later in the evening – just when I’d got comfortable in front of the fire on my favourite rug.

Still feeling unwell in the morning, TOERAG said he was going to take me to “see the vet”. Those three words are enough to put the fear of God into any self-respecting Jack Russell Terrier.  After all, who wants to be crammed into a room the size of a small stable with elderly Labradors saying “oh dear, sweetie, what’s the matter with you?” and young Spaniels showing off about how many pheasants and partridge they’ve “picked up” this season? Frankly it’s all a bit much, and none of them seem to comprehend that when a Jack Russell snarls, growls and makes the ground move akin to being in an earthquake, that that is simply our way of explaining that we’re actually bigger than them, but God just put us in smaller bodies.

The Postman has a cat…

Anyway, all was going fairly well until the Postman came in… with a CAT! Yes, you read that right, a cat.  The man person who drives the small red vehicle and hangs around our back door six days a week appears to let a feline share his home! Seriously, why?!  He must know that dogs provide all possible intelligent and amusing company – every day he witnesses our Oscar-winning displays of snarling, growling and barking, followed by effusive licking and tail-wagging when in receipt of a pat or a small biscuit – why then would he ever want to share his life with a cat! I confess I was acquainted with a cat once, long ago – I tried to have an intelligent conversation with it on the subject of mice, but it ran up a tree and refused to come down. I stayed at the bottom for many hours shouting at it to come down and continue the conversation, but inexplicably it just stayed there. Baffling!

Fortunately it was finally my turn to chat to the vet, who turned out to be a nice young lady person and TOERAG suddenly became all smiley and unnecessary.  She didn’t appear to be too concerned about my condition, but couldn’t resist the temptation to take my temperature just to be sure I was on the mend.  I can promise you I am NOT telling Mother where she put the thermometer – some things are just best not shared.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to join Mother on the sofa now for some further recuperation.

Thanks for reading.  By all means follow me on Instagram if you’d care to: Ralph, Exmoor Jack Russell

Woof!

 

 

Ralph introduces his mother at Stockham Farm

Hello again.

I’d like to thank all the kind readers (at least two, I believe, both human) that have said nice things about my blog.  Before I write much more about the goings on at Stockham Farm, I thought it might be helpful to introduce some members of the family to you.  And my mother in particular.

The picture above is of the two of us – vaguely pretending to like each other to amuse the humans.  As you know, I’m the handsome one on the left, Mother is on the right.  She has completely ridiculous ears and is possibly quite embarrassed by them, though she won’t admit it.

Here’s a picture of Mother as a puppy (sensible ears then).  This was obviously taken a long time ago, as Mother is now 16 years and 3 months old in human years.  Which makes her 114 and a half in dog years.  She was born on the 4th July, so the humans named her Liberty.  This has something to do with America which I’ve heard is quite a long way from Exmoor; but I’ve also heard that Americans quite like Jack Russell Terriers so it must be a nice place.

The story of my birth

I was born 12 years ago in a nice house in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.  My female human (the one they call Ali) was there helping Mother with the whole unsavoury business, and I think all was going well (2 brothers, 1 sister) until it was my turn.  I was a breech birth apparently and the books didn’t cover this, so I understand there was a lot of panicking and pulling and drinking wine until I arrived safely.  This is the story I’ve heard, though I must say I’ve never seen Mother drinking wine, so I assume that was what the humans were doing.

I had an excellent puppyhood until the day we moved into our new house in Hever in Kent and I had an altercation with a badger in his own home and he removed much of my right ear, as you can see from the picture above.  I still can’t understand why the humans were so upset when I showered the hallway with blood from my ear only two hours after we all moved in.  Something to do with “newly decorated throughout” I think.

Mother continues not to help…

We’re all busy getting on with the “renovation” of the Piggery house at Stockham Farm, and can’t wait for some new dog friends to bring their humans to have self-catering holidays here next year.  Although I have to say that Mother isn’t actually helping much at all.  I found her looking at herself in a mirror this week, when she could have been doing some important digging or something.  The humans keep saying that she’s old and deaf and blind, but she still knows whenever and wherever I’m in the room, so I’m not so sure.  She won’t be pleased that I’ve added this picture, as her sticky-up ear looks particularly ridiculous!

I must sign off for now, as my humans have some friends coming to Stockham Farm from Kent for the weekend.  They all live with relatives of mine, which is very nice, so there’ll be lots of chatting, wine-drinking and crumb-dropping under the table.  Perfect!  My humans are doing a lot of “tidying up” in readiness for their friends and Mother’s just fallen asleep on top of some rubbish.  I’d better go and wake her up…

Thanks for reading!  Be sure to follow me on my very own Instagram page if you like: Ralph, Exmoor Jack Russell

Woof!

Meet Ralph the Jack Russell at Stockham Farm

Hello!

My name is Ralph and, in my considered opinion, I’m a perfect example of a Jack Russell Terrier. The picture above is of me as a puppy, and I believe I’m possibly only marginally less cute today (if you ignore the Queen Anne legs)…

Pet Friendly Holiday Cottage Exmoor

A bit of background…

I live at Stockham Farm, Dulverton, Exmoor with my cantakerous mother, two handsome horses, one ridiculous Sheltland pony, numerous sheep, some very large red deer, a lot of irritating pheasants, rabbits, moles, two buzzards and a couple of humans – their friends call them Ali and Jeff, but that’s not what they call each other, so it’s sometimes a little confusing.

The humans decided to move here from Kent (where I had been perfectly happy, in fact) in November 2016 and from then on they’ve done a lot of annoying things with the farmhouse – mostly involving removing the nice interesting smells in the corners of the rooms and doing what they call ‘renovating’ and ‘refurbishing’.  I was extremely helpful throughout all this time (it took them 18 months, for goodness sake) and I taught them an awful lot about digging and how to look under floorboards convincingly, like here…

They’re now very happy with what they’ve done and we now have some friendly dogs who bring their humans to stay in the Victorian Wing of the farmhouse for holidays.  I’m not exactly sure what a Victorian Wing is, but it’s the part of the farmhouse that Mother and I are not allowed to go in and it has its own front door, a huge fireplace, an enormous sofa and some really comfy beds upstairs. I’m not sure why we can’t go in there – perhaps because sometimes holiday humans come here without dogs, which my humans think is perfectly acceptable.  Baffling!

This is to be my own personal blog

I’ve decided that I’m going to write a few words on this website about what really goes on here at Stockham Farm and I hope you’ll enjoy reading about it.  I imagine I’ll have to mention Mother a bit, and the horses and humans too. They’re really keen that I talk about their new project – they’re starting to ‘renovate’ the Piggery here.  I’m OK about this as it’ll be nice to have more holiday dogs and humans here, but at the moment I’m pretending to be cross as they’re doing a lot of standing around and talking – but without tea and biscuits and without much looking under floorboards yet.  Anyway, I think they’ll have to get a bit busier because I’m hoping we’ll have holiday dogs and humans here in January!

Thanks for reading – off to claim my spot in front of the Aga and put some pictures on my Instagram page: Ralph, Exmoor Jack Russell

Woof!