Millie’s First Birthday

 A year of life with 'smelly Millie with the Ears' already?

 Twelve months gone? Never! 

Throughout the year I said things like: 

”Millie’s first spring with us”,  

"Millie’s first summer in the garden with free-anytime-access-to-the-river”, 

Millie’s first time of this or that,

as any fond parent with a new baby would do.

She has taken over house and garden and much of the castle grounds,

like any self-respecting dog does, who knows what a personage of her importance is owed.

She’s still overweight,

still has those ridiculous ears,

and still thinks that anyone she meets is in need of a thorough Millie cuddle.

She has calmed down somewhat; 

although she enjoys her walks,

she is just as keen on fossicking around in the tall grass of the castle meadow,

spending hours with her nose deep in 

 the soft underbelly of tussocks and damp hollows.

She is a darling,

and we’ve never, not once, not for a second,

regretted giving her a home when she became surplus to requirements

in her previous life.

And right at this moment she is a very useful dog to have around, because:-

I believe all over England a Spayed Bitch is accounted wholesome in a House; that is to say, they have a strong belief that it keeps away evil from haunting of a House.....at Cranborn in Dorset about 1686, a Home was haunted and two Tenants successively went away for that reason; a third came and brought his Spayed Bitch, and was never troubled.

So said John Aubrey in his  Remains of Gentilism of 1688, and he should know. Besides, what with Halloween coming  . . . . . .