Scoobie said to Willow "remind me why we convinced our owners to come to Scotland?" Willow giggled and replied "well Scoobie, all our friends convinced their owners to come here too." "And?" said Scoobie. Willow giggled and replied " look around, beautiful scenery, great food, men wearing skirts, amazing walks, men playing music on strange things and plenty of trees." With that they both giggled and found the nearest tree.

It had already been a funny day, their owners had driven them up over night and they had arrived at the cottage just in time for breakfast. Now Scoobie and Willow, can't tell the time, but when they smell bacon and sausages they know it's breakfast time. The smell was coming from one of the other cottages. So Scoobie and Willow ran over and found their friend Prof sitting outside reading a book.

"Hello you two" he whispered. "Is everyone here?" asked Scoobie, "yes" responded Prof. As their owners unpacked the car, Prof's owners came out of their cottage and saw Scoobie and Willow's owner and said " oh whoa, this is a surprise, fancy seeing you here." "Yes isn't it" they replied.

All through the day as they came across a cottage in the village, there was another owner who visits their B+ B in Torquay. One of Scoobie's and Willow's owners said "what is the chance of all of us booking a cottage on the same week in the same village" Willow started to giggle, so Scoobie had no choice but to bite Willows ear and said " leave it, don't give the game away, we haven't been to the other village yet."

Willow started to giggle again, so Scoobie looked at Willow and said "sssh don't, stop it, they still think they own us and that they are in charge." That did it and they started to both giggle under their barks. Later, while the owners chatted, they let their dogs run about in a field. In the field the dogs all chatted and laughed about how well the plan had worked.

As their owners strolled around the next village, they came across some dogs and they said to each other "do you recognise those dogs?" They both agreed they knew every single one and further on they came across the tea rooms and sitting in the garden were people having tea and every single one Scoobie's and Willow's owners recognised. They joined them for tea and the chat was about how amazing everyone had booked the same week and in these villages.

Not one of the owners was going to admit, it was their dog who picked this week and these villages. The prof had put an email together and sent it to all the owners, then it was down to each dog to bark when it came to selecting the week and village and keep barking until it was booked. Every dog wanted to giggle, but Scoobie ran a paw across her mouth, which meant no giggling.

Only Scoobie, the prof and Scoobie's friend Jock who lived in Scotland, knew the reason why everyone was in Scotland and particularly this area. You see there was a world shortage of truffles and Jock knew an area not far from these villages where there were truffles. The plan was to harvest them and take them back to Torquay and sell them. The money would be used to fund the weekly parties that Scoobie and Willow held in their owners B + B. It meant they could buy better sausages and other meats.

It had taken a lot of planning on Scoobie's and Prof's part and there was a scary moment for Scoobie, when Scoobie was in the bar using her owners smart phone, chatting to the Prof, when she heard her owner coming, she quickly ended the call and barked at the phone, just as her owner entered the bar. Scoobie said to herself " it's not fair when humans don't wear anything on their feet, it's hard to hear them coming." Mind you Scoobie had to giggle when her owner said "That's strange I thought I heard someone talking."

Let me tell you about Jock, he is a canny dog, meaning he was a very clever dog. He is one of a very few dogs that can sniff out truffles. He had told Scoobie on his last visit to the B+B in Torquay about it. Prof was there that week and while his owner was in the shower, he used his owner's phone to do some research. He told Scoobie later, as I said earlier, there was a world shortage and they could sell them for good money. So a plan was hatched, first they needed the gang up in Scotland and the prof said " leave that to me."

Jock then came up with a plan to cut down on the work when they were there, I mean after all they were going to be on holiday. Jock said he would sniff out the truffles but not tell his owner where they were, mark the area, so later the gang could find them. Of course he would still find some for his owner, but not all he discovered. They all burst out laughing and nearly got caught, once again Scoobie said " it should be law that all humans should wear footwear so we can hear them coming."

Next morning the owners as a group took their dogs to a forest near the villages. Jock and Scoobie were pleased that they were going to this forest as it was one of the places where Jock had hidden the truffles. Trouble was Jock's owner was keeping him close to her, so when no one was paying attention, Jock whispered to Willow " see over there, that fallen tree, there are some truffles under it."

Willow ran over to the fallen tree and sure enough there were the truffles, but did not recognise them as truffles. Five minutes later Jock ran over, only to find Willow eating the truffles. "Why are you eating the truffles?" said Jock. "Oh, I thought they were mushrooms. " Jock shook his head and said "Willow do not eat any more." Willow replied " Yes, okay, I don't like the taste anyway." Which made them both giggle.

Later that afternoon after lunch the owners took all the dogs for a walk, it was really hot, so the dogs were delighted when they came to a lake. While the owners sat in the shade, the dogs enjoyed the lake. Well all the dogs except one, who was shivering by the side of the lake saying the water was too cold. It gave Scoobie time to tell the rest of the dogs what the plan was. They all liked the idea and were looking forward to their next visit to the B+B in Torquay and Scoobie's weekly party.

Scoobie sat under a tree watching them all in the lake and giggled and under a woof said " is that the Loch Ness Monster I can see," with that all the dogs came rushing out of the water.  Scoobie then said under another woof " No, it's okay, it's just a fallen tree " and with that fell about laughing.

On the walk back to the villages, they past some railway tracks, Scoobie run over to the tracks and put her ear to the track and said " there is a train coming, hang on, yes, it's a steam train and I believe it's has 6 large wheels and 4 smaller ones." The other dogs were impressed and even more impressed, when the train arrived and yes it was a steam engine with 6 large wheels and 4 smaller ones.

One of the dogs said to Willow, "Scoobie is so clever." Willow replied, "not really, Scoobie saw that train yesterday." With that Scoobie came bounding over and said to Willow, "hey, stop giving all my secrets away." With that they all burst out laughing.

They all continued their walk back, Scoobie was determined to get her own back on Willow, so decided to have a game of hide and seek. She waited until she found the perfect spot and organised the game, Willow wanted to to go first, hehehe Scoobie knew that. So Willow stood on the path and closed her eyes and counted to 100, when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see all the dogs in a group a 100 yards away. "Found you. found you." said an excited Willow.

Scoobie giggled and replied " Willow we have changed the game, we are now playing a game called "look behind you", so look behind you." Willow looked behind her to find some highland cows creeping up on her and ran to the safety of the group. Everyone giggled, even the owners who saw Willow run back, but they had no idea what had truly been going on.

That evening in one of the cottage's gardens, Scoobie called a meeting of all the dogs to put the plan into action. Everyone turned up on time except Willow, Scoobie and Willow had come to the cottage together with their owners, but Willow never made it to the garden. "Shall we go out search for Willow?" said one of the dogs. Scoobie thought for a moment and then a familiar smell hit her nose. Scoobie then replied " it's okay I know where Willow is."

Two minutes later Scoobie found Willow in the kitchen eying up some sausages. "Willow!" Willow looked at Scoobie and said "oops yes I am coming." Scoobie waited for Willow as she knew how much she loved sausages, Willow would never take them, but would have waited there until someone gave her one.

Next morning, Scoobie divided the dogs in groups and gave them a route and model to follow, I mean nothing could go wrong, could it? Sadly it did, the first group ended up on top of a mountain, the lead dog studied the model and could not work out what had gone wrong until one dog asked what it said at the bottom of the model. "erm, top," said the lead dog, which meant they had been going away from where the truffles had been hidden by Jock.

"So how are we going to convince our owners, to not only walk down the mountain, but past the village and out through the village?" asked the other dogs. The lead dog said that they would have to go out tomorrow and this time go the right way. The dogs reminded the lead dog to turn the model around again, so that they could get back, with that they all howled with laughter.

The other group that Scoobie sent out did not do any better. They just asked for the route told Scoobie they did not need a model and two hours later ended up a mountain too. One of the dogs asked " which way now? " With that two of the dogs pointed in different directions, luckily one of the dogs remembered that the villages were near to the lake, which he could see from the top of the mountain. So with their tails between their legs they went back to Scoobie and Jock empty pawed.

Luckily for everyone else Scoobie, Jock and Willow had been more successful and had come back with a bag of truffles. Mind you, they had to keep Willow well away from the truffles, even though she had said she did not like the taste. Scoobie remembered that was what Willow said a long time ago about sausages and now we all know about Willow and sausages.

After hearing what happened to the other two groups, they decided the next day, Jock would take one group and Scoobie and Willow the other group. They had only two days left before they went home. "Right everyone, time to encourage your owners to go to bed early, as we need an early start tomorrow to make up for lost time, said Scoobie.

The next two days they collected as many truffles as they could, on the last evening they decided to weigh them, Willow asked if she could do it. Scoobie looked at her and said " mmm okay, but I have counted them." Willow knew there was a weighing machine in the bathroom, so when their owners were not looking she crept in and weighed them. Five minutes later she came back and told everyone the truffles weighed 22 kilos. All the dogs were amazed and were impressed how much they had gathered.

"Willow how did you weigh them?" asked Scoobie. "Well I crept into the bathroom stood on the weighing machine and held the bag in my mouth." replied Willow. Scoobie stood there and said nothing, until Willow said "oops I seem to have weighed myself, be back in a moment." She came back in 5 minutes and said "4 kilos." With that they all giggled and then prof said " at today's market price we are going to be eating the best meat for a long time." Everyone went to bed very happy.

Two days later, Scoobie and Willow were back in Torquay with their owners in the B + B. Prof and a couple of the other dogs were arriving today and the Prof had also arranged a meeting with a buyer, who just happened to be staying in the B + B with his dog. The meeting was set for 8 in the garden, it had to be a casual meeting with Scoobie and the Prof to take a truffle with them. All day all Willow could say was sausages oh my sausages.

Just after 8, the Prof and Scoobie casually walked into the garden, the prof had one of the truffles hidden in the books he always carried about. When no one was looking, the Prof passed the man the truffle, the Prof and Scoobie waited while the man first sniffed it, then cut off a slice and tasted it. After a couple of minutes the man said " this is an excellent truffle, did you get all of them from the same place?" "Yes" replied the Prof. "You have 4 kilos, I will take all of them." With that he named his price and the Prof agreed and to take them to the man's room.

As they walked back in to get the truffles, they were greeted by Willow, the prof said " great idea not to let Willow look after the truffles, who did you get to guard them?" Scoobie said " it's okay Lucky is looking after them in the dining room." The Prof stopped dead in his tracks and said " oh no, do you know why he is called Lucky?"  Scoobie shook her head, the prof carried on and said " because you are lucky if there is any food left if you put this dog in a room with food."

They opened the dining room door to be greeted by the sight of Lucky eating the last truffle. Lucky looked up and said " strange chocolates. but have a really nice taste." The Prof laughed and said " see what I mean lucky."