I WOULD like you all to check this article for tooth marks. Tiny little needle teeth attached to a grimly determined little set of jaws set in a reverse gear body. In other words a spaniel puppy. Ahhh. Our newest baby. Three months before the real one is due and marginally ahead of several hundred expected to appear in the next few weeks to the ewes in our life.

The puppy, Holly is her name, came courtesy of friends who farm in Shropshire. John had expressed a liking for her mum when we stayed with them for a day's shooting, and she has been sent to him as a gift. A very generous gift too. Her brothers and sisters all sold within two hours of the advert going into the paper. Joy and Kevin, our friends, wanted John to have her as they could hardly bear to part with her, but did not want another dog. In John, they said, she would have a good owner who would train her well; and they would be able to see her working in years to come.

We have never had a spaniel before and she is very different. After the initial shyness and timidity she introduced herself to the other four dogs, even won over Jack, our grumpy old Labrador, fawned on Geoff my brother-in-law's feet, tugged at his socks, and squirmed her way into John's heart. She never stops chasing after toys, chewing chair legs and shoes, loose socks, towels, cushion covers or stray newspapers. Energy overload. Then slump, fast asleep on a cushion. Her home is in a stable under a pig lamp, surrounded now by a basket of toys. We have not heard her crying when we leave her, but she is scrabbling to get out when we open the door of the stable.

Enough about puppies. On a serious note, the farm where she came from is only now restocking after being wiped out with a contiguous cull in April 2001. The second time that it has happened to our friends, who can both remember as children having even their pets destroyed in the first foot and mouth outbreak. The scene now is idyllic. Streams, woods, grass meadows. And in the middle a fenced off pit filled with contaminated dirty water from the clean-up. Citric acid they used. Lemonade powder. Our friends are trying to get back into farming via the Countryside Stewardship, but are finding the bureaucracy is strangling their every move. There are 200 sentinel sheep on the farm due to lamb in a fortnight's time, but whether or not they stock up with more sheep depends on the outcome of yet more meetings with DEFRA. The farm can trace its history back to a medieval deer park, but for all the help they are getting it might as well have been a '60s car park. Probably would have been willing to retain that for kitsch value.

At home John is setting more gateposts to secure the entrance into the farm via the milking parlour. It will mean that we can limit the farm entrances if we ever have need to, and will prove useful when we start moving the ewes and lambs around the yard. No more rickety pallets to block off entrances, a proper set of gates instead.

I think we will have to attach a reflective strip to the top of the gates when they are in place. The squeal of brakes when the first gate went up showed that some cars were coming into the yard far too fast. I can just imagine that some of our friends will turn off the top road and start braking immediately. They have been warned.

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, March 28, 2002