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

THE NORTH-EAST of Scotland has had its share of nasty historical characters who displayed a spine-chilling lack of social accountability even for the lawless times in which they lived. read more

TOO COMMON a sight at this time of year are the crumpled corpses of cock pheasants lying at the roadsides.

BEING SOLD at Taylors Auctions, Montrose, last Saturday was an unusual item of Scottish domestic history.  It was a pine bacon settle and it was only the second one I’ve come across.  I could get no information about them from Marion Lochhead’s The Scottish Household in the 18th Century, nor from F. Marion McNeill’s The Scots Kitchen, which suggests they are pretty rare.

ALL MY enthusiastic predictions about spring have turned – I was going to say to ashes – but to snow.  Easter is supposed to herald spring – or is it the other way round?  There is early spring and late spring, meteorological spring and the astrological one.  Frankly, the whole thing is a liturgical nightmare.

THE WIDEOPEN is a secondary road crossing the ridge of hills linking Marykirk in the Howe of the Mearns with St Cyrus on the coastal plain. The Doyenne and I had bought a bag of Inka’s favourite dog meal at the Moorie Kennels and were heading home.

“IT’S ALL that teuchat storms” was the comment from a walker of my own vintage who I meet regularly. It’s an old expression, rarely heard these days, but I knew fine what he meant.

I LOOKED back to this time last year to see what I had written about and it confirmed what the Doyenne and I suspected. The weather was milder a year ago but, despite the recent cold snap, signs of spring this year seem at least a fortnight earlier.

THE BIG Thaw struck and the landscape took on a distinctly unhealthy colour. Deep fog descended like a wet blanket and it was all dubs and gutters underfoot. The snowdrops closed their petals and hung their heads in gloom.

SO OFTEN the weather has the last word. Last week I was counting the days till spring arrived and this week the Beast from the East blew in and turned things upside down.

THE LENGTHENING days raise my spirits. I can put up with the dreich mornings knowing that spring is just biding her time to make an entrance. The snowdrops in the woods are in full bloom and the pencil heads of daffodils are showing above ground and will add new colour when the snowdrops die away.