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Our little ratbag has surprised us twice in the last two days.

1. Sunday was the two year anniversary of The Fielders accepting our offer on the house. Might not seem like much to you lot, dear readers, but it means a lot to us because we love this house. Anyway, I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and, as those of you who have been in the house when we’ve opened a bottle of champagne would know, our two-year-strong tradition is to stand on the back balcony, squeeze the cork off and try to clear the back fence. When we don’t clear it, Max usually finds the cork and eats it.

   Well, Maxy boy has obviously watched and learned because when I picked the bottle up off the kitchen bench to open it he bolted out the door, raced down to the lawn and stood look up to wait for us to let the cork go from balcony. We were so amazed that we deliberately popped the cork so that he’d catch it.

   The cool thing, we reckon, is that he doesn’t do that at all with normal wine bottles. Our almost-4-year-old dog can tell the difference between wine and champagne. Some humans can’t even do that.

2. Last night the thunderstorms were pretty severe down here. They don’t usually bother Max too much, he doesn’t bark or go silly, but last night he went missing in the house. It took us 15 minutes to find him - he had taken himself into our walk-in-robe. The big softy.