This is a photo of Star at Carols in the Square tonight. We learned a lesson when we attended the switching on of the Christmas lights in the square earlier this month. The lesson was that in a crowd with a small dog, you spend most of your time making sure the little dog doesn’t get trodden on. Or you give in and pick up the little dog, and then you can’t hold both your coffee and your brandy snap. Or your mulled wine and your roast hog, if you’re that way inclined.

This time of year can get stressful for us all, so if you feel your dog needs a Christmas survival guide, then check out this one from Dr Roger Mugford in the Telegraph. I love his suggestion for a dog owner’s New Year resolution. (www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3902388/Christmas-survival-guide-Pe...)

Do you ever see dogs tied up outside shops and worry about them? I do. Even though I live near a very small town, where dogs are probably fairly safe from theft, I still worry that they are clearly unhappy to be left alone. In their canine rationale of the world, surely they must feel abandoned by their pack.

Okay, I was going to write a blog about how many of the rescue shelters in Britain are reporting that they are filling up with dogs and can’t take in any more. But I wanted to blog about something happier, so I decided to talk about the upcoming movie of John Grogan’s book, Marley and me.

You can find a trailer and information about the film at http://marleyandmemovie.com/ and it looks like it’s a great film. Whether you’ve read the book or not you’ll enjoy the story of probably the naughtiest dog in the world. A Labrador of course!