They're fraternal twins, born in a litter of only two. Perhaps that accounts for their size. Registered as toy poodles they bear little resemblance in size to toys. They're the size of miniature poodles but bear all the personality characteristics of toy poodles, the most annoying one of which is their propensity to being averse to the presence of other dogs. The very presence of another dog, even at a far distance is enough to get them snarling, barking and carrying on in the most hostile manner. It's embarrassing at the least, and represents a potential physical threat to our two little incorrigibles should a large dog ever take real umbrage; for the most part, the dogs we come across n the ravine are very forgiving.

And those that Jackie and Jillie have become familiar with have also become their distant friends. The usual tactic is that Jillie, the lead instigator, will run ahead barking shrilly at the 'interloper' in 'her' forest and Jackie, the follower, will take up the rear, barking more emphatically with his deeper masculine sound (for a toy), both unheeding to our demands to return to us. Return they do eventually, in a scramble of a rush when the dog they've been harassing is fed up and decides to run for them.

They're basically little housedogs, those two, uninterested in being outside if we're not accompanying them in the backyard. But go out with them on the coldest, most miserable of days and they're ecstatic viewing the snow, leaping about in a frenzy of joyful happiness that they're out, the cold and the snow motivating them to scamper acrobatically all over the backyard in hot pursuit of one another, stopping from time to time to come to face with one another so they can lift themselves to a two-legged standing position and engage in a bout of boxing and wrestling.

When we suit them up for a walk in the ravine on these excessively cold days they've got to wear those irksome boots, otherwise their tiny feet would freeze them to the spot. Both we and they hate the process of drawing on the boots and securing them adequately, but once they're out in the ravine on the forest trails they become rambunctiously oblivious of the boots, thinking they're superdog able to leap impossible heights with gay abandon. That gay abandon and the heights to which they can reach sometimes loosens the boots and off they come, then have to be refitted, not an activity kind to bare hands in -17C weather.

But there we were, on our daily mission to touch base with raw nature in the wind and the cold as usual yesterday, with occasional snow dustings sandwiched between a wan winter sun, while making our way along the trails affording us the opportunity we so value to appreciate the wonderful landscape revealed before us as we progressed, they sniffing mightily at the usual doggy signposts to gain information on which of their familiar acquaintances had been out on the trails before them.