We thought yesterday that it was about time our puppies had a bath. Oddly enough, when earlier in the morning I was in the spare bathroom doing a routine cleaning, Jackie followed me and became quite excited when I scrubbed the bathtub in there. The strangest expressions issued from his throat, leaving me wondering whether he was trying to tell me he too thought it was time for a bath.

He does, visibly enjoy the warm water being laved over him, and the gentle scrubbing of his haircoat. He is more sensitive to ambient cool air while he's still damp from the bath but it hardly matters since, as soon as both he and his sister have been bathed and towelled dry they become imps of unimaginable energetic fury, dashing after each other up the stairs, down the stairs, all about the house. Stopping only for brief wrestling episodes of ferocious intensity.

While Jackie is being bathed (he's done before his sister usually) Jillie is curious but at the same time tries to make herself scarce. She does not evince any anxiety over Jackie, who, unusually for his high-strung temperament, submits docilely to the process and just loses himself in what we assume to be enjoyment of the moment.

Once he is bathed and is in the process of being towelled dry, and the tub is being refilled with warm water for Jillie's bath, she sits by pensively awaiting the inevitable, but quietly resigned unlike her brother who, while she is in the bath and being soaped up keeps lunging, beside me, trying to reach her.

And when her bath has concluded and it's her turn to be towelled off, Jackie expends an enormous amount of energy leaping up toward where she is standing on the bathroom vanity top, loudly vocal and seemingly anxious on her behalf, as though we are busy tormenting her in some way and he, her brother, is coming to her rescue.

Once they're both released, as dry as towels can make them, the pandemonium proceeds, challenges and barking and stampeding everywhere, and in the process completing the drying job.