The adventures of Benji the wonder poodle!

If you've been following our blog you will know that we have been accompanied on our trip by our faitfhul companion Benji.  In fact you can't have missed him as our sons Dave and Paul often joke about how many of our photos and videos feature him in some way.

Some of you will know the story of how we acquired Benji--an ex Hearing Dog who made it most of the way through his training but didn't graduate at the end so needed to find an alternative career. 

We've now been his owners for just over 5 years. When we first got him he was ever so well behaved and didn't act like a dog at all.  This particular cross-breed (poodle/terrier) is renowned for its intelligence which is why they are often used as assistance dogs.   During his training he had used his intelligence to learn to react to different sounds.  When we first had him, if the phone rang, he would circle round the room and come and sit down next to us to let us know.

He also had an "off" switch at meal times where as soon as food was served at the table he would go and lie still in his basket until we had finished.

Hearing Dogs are trained by rewarding good behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour and although they learn very quickly the good behaviour needs to be regularly practised and rewarded to reinforce it otherwise the animals slowly forget their training.  Of course from their point of view there is no "good behaviour" or "bad behaviour" - only behaviour that often seems to result in some sort of reward so seems worth trying again - and behaviour that doesn't.

So, had we continued to reward Benji's mealtime behaviour we would still have a dog who didn't scrounge.  Unfortunately it's our discipline rather than his which has let us down!

In fact a year away with us in the caravan has turned him into a scrounging mutt.  He no longer goes to his basket when we eat....instead you'll find him hoovering any crumbs which fall to the floor, and many do as we eat outside a lot - and yes we do sometimes "accidentally" drop other bits of food onto the ground so he really has no incentive whatsoever to stay in his basket!

We're still not sure that, given the choice, he really wanted to spend a year away from home but maybe he just wanted to be away for Christmas to avoid this sort of humiliation!

Not satisfied with being patient while we do the necessary chores around the van, as he always was at home, he constantly gets under our feet wanting us to play.

At night he tries his hardest to join us on the bed rather than occupying  his own bunk at the far end of the caravan.

He's worse than any child for running away from wasps as he got stung within our first week away

He has got very used to his morning walk coinciding with visiting the camp shops or boulangeries to pick up a baguette, and now expects 'the knobby bit' as a treat for waiting outside.

He has been loved and adored by many other campers and campsite owners, which seems to have given him an elevated thought of where his rank is in our pack.........and he tries emotional blackmail whenever we go out and leave him behind by looking so dejected and hurt.

He reads our body language like a book and seems to know exactly what our plans are every minute of every day.

One thing which we've not lost from his previous hearing dog training is his reaction to the smoke alarm in the van.  As you can image even making toast sets the thing of in such a small place, so if we forget to remove it before any cooking takes place it tends to let everyone know we're cooking something.  Benji has a great dislike for its noise and has learnt that whenever Julie just lifts the lid to the cooker or opens the oven the alarm will probably go off, so he clears out before it has a chance and we usually find him hiding somewhere outside the van.

All in all he has been a marvellous travelling companion, and although having a dog with us has prevented us from doing some of the touristy things, we haven't regretted our decision to bring him with us at all.  In fact we've been kept much healthier because we've gone out of our way to make sure he has a lot of exercise so we've had a lot of exercise too.  We think nothing of a 10 km walk before breakfast......will this continue when we get home?

We think he misses home but we can't be sure.  When we arrive at yet another new camp site you can sense him thinking "OK, so where are we now?"

It will be very interesting to see his reaction when we walk in the front door in a couple of weeks time.  


But he has definitley enjoyed most of his time away and his favourite pastimes include sunbathing

and a day on the beach (river, lake or sea)

But when he ends up looking like this

he's not so keen on the mandatory visit to the dog shower

but after a wash and brush-up it's time for a visit to a beach cafe

and a sleep back at the caravan, guarding mum's favourite chocolates!