Tricolor Trio

Since this week was dedicated to the dogs, I decided to make one last stab at getting a picture of the three of them together--not an easy task. The obvious solution for this retriever trio was food, for which they would all sit still and wait with laser-locused attention.

The fog was dense today so the beach coast was definitely not an option. We waited until after lunch to visit Airlie Winery, the place where Ozzie first went in the water. When he was quite young we took him to this lovely winery with a large pond and a dock, a place for a picnic , two Irish Setters, who rushed down to greet us, as we got out of the car, and a tasting room up the driveway. As we were wrangling dogs, planning to leave ours in the cars, Mary, the owner came out and called down to us that the dogs were welcome to come up. "I've got lots of towels,", she said.

The only rule regarding the dogs was that they should stay out of the tasting room, so we went inside to sit by a cosy fire, on what was a chilly Spring day, and the dogs all took off together to go in the lake, run through the vineyard, and randomly chase each other around until they were so tired that they were quite happy to lie outside and wait for us to finish whatever it was we were doing in there. I needn't have worried about Ozzie who had never been more than ten feet away from us in his life.

During one last swim before we headed home, Ozzie ran out on the dock, looked across a small stretch of water to see us standing on shore and jumped! He surfaced with a shocked, incredulous expression on his face, having never gotten more than his belly wet as he waded around in the shallows. Instinct quickly took over and he swam to shore before I jumped in to rescue him.

Today the sun was out by the time we got there and we sat outside tasting wine, watching as the tricolor trio tore off to the lake with the Irish Setters and chatted with Mary about the harvest, the dogs and our previous visits. Before we left with a case of wine, we bought a bottle of port (which I don't really like) because all the proceeds go to the Food Bank and the local Animal Rescue...