Ron had to be 'dug out' of a drainage ditch on Thursday.

He has this habit of heading for water when he has exhausted himself with the ball-chasing game (picture shows him doing just that last year in France.)  We were heading back to the car, having walked the playing fields beside the water meadows, when he swerved right and disappeared down the ditch alongside Gypsy Lane.

MWWN knew where there was a section of pipe connecting two ditches running at right-angles. Sure enough, the sound of little terrier splashing was coming from inside the pipe. I could see him at the far end (about 3 metres from the Gypsy Lane end) because there was a hole at the top of the debris that was blocking the ditch on the farmer's field end.

Being a typical terrier, Ron is 'selectively deaf' when engaged in terrier-type killing-of-the-ball by drowing. No amount of calling or whistling could penetrate the deaf-state. So I found a stout branch and cleared some of the debris from the top of the pile - just enough so that I could see Ron's red collar below me. Then I thrust my arm into the gap and grabbed the collar to haul him out. He complained and gurgled and threatened to kill anyone who took his 'quarry' from him but, with MWNN's help, I manoevered Ron through the dried mud, leaves, and branches that had formed a plug in the eastern end of the pipe.

What a smelly, soggy, muddy Ron we had in the back of the car while we shopped in the suppermarket. He didn't mind, of course, and flaked out for a long snooze in his crate in the warmth of the underground carpark.

He's definitely a terrier through and through and I do hope we don't have to resort to an expanding lead to prevent this happening again. Ash's demeanour changed for the worse after we put him on the expander. He became very agressive towards all other dogs and that caused us problems of a much more serious nature.