Thanks SRS, very much appreciated.

It’s not so much the ‘chewing puppy phase’ at the moment, more the ‘peeing and pooing in the house puppy phase’! Our house is a three-storey town-house, and our living room and kitchen are on the middle floor. Ziggy is too small to negotiate the stairs right now, and is likely to be so for the next several weeks, so it’s difficult to teach him the route from the living room to the back door. We had the same experience with Baxter when he was a pup, so it was up and down the stairs every 20 minutes or so to put him out in the garden for a pee or a poo (or, more often, neither of those)! As soon as he could get down the stairs unaided, he started taking himself to the back door and the ‘accidents’ in the house stopped. I suppose the ‘plus’ side is that going up and down stairs is good aerobic exercise for Mrs Backwoodswoman and me!

Ziggy does seem to like my fingers to chew, as well as the fresh tripe we’re feeding him on (which stinks to high heaven, but he hoovers it up like it’s going out of fashion!).

Very early, and hard work, days right now, but we’re looking forward to the coming months once he’s fully vaccinated, when we can take him out for walks and begin the important work of training him.