Welcome to "Man with two dogs" - the family website for dog owners and dog walkers.

FOOTPRINTS IN the frosty grass coming towards the house and then going away again might have been a warning that someone had been prowling round in the middle of the night. But it had only been me taking the dogs out last thing, and then coming back.

“NOW I heard the birds rejoicing in the soft returning spring / Full of pleasure were their motions as they spread the glittering wing / While I gaze I spied a snow-drop's tiny bud just bursting through / It hath borne the winter's darkness with a spirit meek and true.”

RECENT MORNINGS Macbeth (the West Highland White Terrier) has been most reluctant to join me for the early run. He pokes his nose out of the door to taste the day, finds nothing to his satisfaction, and tries to slip unobtrusively back to the warmth of his bed.

YOU TREAD on some unexpected things when you go out in the countryside – the expected things you know about and have learnt to step round!