I wrote last month that I was hopefully going to gain a new permission, and it's only gone and happened! The farm hosts a game shoot over the winter, with many of the drives running along a river. This makes my labrador, Joe, very useful because he swims like an otter and loves working in water, which makes him popular with the gamekeeper. The keeper had mentioned that he had way too many squirrels on the ground, and the damage they were causing and the food they were eating was costing him a lot of money and wasting his precious time.
He occasionally runs traps, but often lacks the time to go around setting them and so they sit unused. Naturally, I told him that I'm rather good at reducing squirrel numbers, so he invited me to
