You know when someone is a dog person and you definitely know when they’re not. I admit that when I arrived at Marshall’s farm I was so scared I wet myself and pretty much everything else. It was clear from the first day that Marshall's wife had changed her mind about wanting a puppy and wanted to send me back.

People do that – think it’s all cute and how nice it’ll be to have a dog an’ all, but us puppies need feeding and our growing teeth hurt. We need training and most people hate to do that.  You have to train a puppy. Down stay, up, go, fetch, sit-up, lie down, jump up, beg (we hate that one), roll over. To be honest we like to be trained - honest. We aim to please. Ask any dog.

Marshall's wife didn’t want to train me and I knew from the first day that he had a bad leg and I wouldn’t be getting any walks.  I have to admit that I promised myself I’d run away first chance I got, as soon as I knew which way was up, but then one day when Marshall took me to the fields and started training me, I knew I had to stay.  He was gentle and patient and I realised that he needed me.  I finally understood why she had chosen me.  I was here to teach him how to live alone.

I was a yearling before he realised that he hadn’t given me a proper name, still hasn’t.  Moucher was his nickname for me and it kind of stuck.

My training continues.  It’s never really over, people are hard to teach and they forget lessons easily.  Marshall had terrible black moods sometimes and I always knew when he was gong to black out.  Sometimes I’d try to warn him and he’d sit down to wait, but sometimes he ignored me and fell. As I said people don’t always remember their training.  Washing a human’s face to wake them up takes effort and they don’t always remember to leave the kibble bag open so you can feed yourself if they are unconscious for a day or more. 

I’m Moucher – my job is to train people to be better owners, no matter what it takes.  Best job for a dog in the world.