Table manners

Most of the greyhounds at the local retired greyhound rehoming kennels have impeccable manners when eating dog treats. In fact for many of the dogs, and the volunteer walkers, the best part of the walk is dog treats and cuddles in the yard after a brisk 20-minute spin around the kennel's fields.

Some walkers bring their own treats - sausages, cheese, anything from Bakers, and Schmakos always seem to go down well - and there are a couple of large dog bowls containing an assortment of treats.

Many of the dogs will wait and eat the treat gently out of your hand. When you give them the dog bowl full of treats, they'll root around until they find one that they like, and eat that one, rather than scoffing the whole bowl at once.

There are exceptions and one of them is Josh. Since coming in as a poor sorry skinny thing a couple of weeks ago Josh has come out of himself. He's now one of the happiest, most gregarious, dogs in the kennels - and definitely a larger-than-life character, which is saying something given he's the size of a small cart horse.

He has also lost his appetite and found a donkey's. And he's very cheeky when it comes to treat time, and more than ready to help himself. (Post-walk treat mantra: This is not a buffet).

He disgraced me a couple of weeks ago, when he landed head-first into one of the dog bowls - they had turned into plastic pumpkin buckets in time for halloween - tipped it up and guzzled about a dozen down. He only stopped when I managed to manhandle him away.

That was nothing compared to the trouble one of the other walkers had today. There was a tempting bag of sausages on the table. The walker didn't have a chance, in one swoop, Josh grabbed them with his teeth and PULLED, sending sausages flying all over the floor and causing mayhem amongst all the dogs in the yard.

Pandemonium ensued as volunteers desperately tried to pick up the scattered sausages before they were all hoovered up by an exultant Josh.

Made me think that Josh was wrongly named though - surely he should be Scooby-Doo?