Happy Days

The business is going well!

And we're having fun!

OK ... so it's not all fun. There's poop to contend with on a daily basis but when you are fortunate enough to have beauties like this chap ...

Murphy

 ... you really can't complain.

My only complaint about his job ....

... is that we only seem to get sensible dogs!

There hasn't been one single opportunity to video anything worth sending to one of home video clip shows!

Oh, I'd share the money with the owners ... I really would!

Blossom, our cat, has her nose seriously out of joint these days. When we have dogs staying, she retires to the safety of the upper level and spends her time sleeping or glowering through the stair rail at the interlopers. On occasions she will venture downstairs and confront a dog, but none have been brave enough to try that experience a second time.

Blossoms rare appearances certainly keep us on our toes!

Heavy rain over the past few weeks have turned out garden into a quagmire and it necessitates a mop being permanently stationed by the patio doors for rapid mud removal.

The carpet cleaner also has also taken up residence in the kitchen to remove all those unwanted carpet stains.

This will however soon be a thing of the past as work to lay natural stone paving over what used to be our lawn is due to commence next week ... if the weather allows.

That's it for now.

Sorry there were no laugh out loud moments ... I blame the dogs for being too sensible!

My Dream

I have made no bones about missing my dogs Sym and Sox.

In fact, I may have bored you all rigid with my tales of their exploits over the last few weeks. There is more to tell, but I'm going to wait for a little while before renewing my trip down doggy memory lane.

After this...

Last night I had a dream.

It was a strange dream but it was very vivid and seemed very real. I remembered it all, which is very unusual as normally I only remember fragments that leave me sometimes frustrated, but mostly curious.

This dream took place in a grassy area, which I took to be the fields of Hailey Park where I often took the dogs for their walks.

I was surrounded by a wall of fog some twenty yards away from me in every direction.

I heard no sounds.

As I stood there, the fog began to swirl and two dark figures walked out of it into the clearing carrying something between them..

One, obviously male, was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie. The other, obviously female, wore a dark waist length jacket, white blouse, dark gaucho-style trousers and black knee length boots.

Nothing particularly strange there, until I realised that both figures had dog's heads.

As they drew nearer I say that the male had the head of Sym and the female the head of Sox. 

They stopped directly in front of me and I then saw that the object they carried was a babies carry-cot.
They put it on the ground and stepped forward and began to hug me and lick my face, all the time making 'wrowowow' and whining sounds.  

As they made those sounds ... and this bit is weird ... white subtitles appeared before my eyes.

"We have missed you so much!" they said. "We are doing well and taking care of each other. And we've been watching you".

I told  them how much I was missing them too and as I did so, the subtitles changed to series or written growls, yelps and barks.

They turned away from me and pick up the carry-cot indicating as they did so that I should look inside.

The Sym figure pulled back a small blue blanket and the Sox figure said "This is Leo".

I looked inside the carry-cot and saw a black, grey and white dappled puppy lying fast asleep on his back. 

"He is going to be yours one day and you are to look after him as you looked after us" the Sox figure said.

When I asked when that would be, they just said "You will know when 'Leo' comes alone, but you won't have to wait very long."

With that they said their goodbye's, there were more hugs and lick, and the took the carry-cot with the sleeping Leo back into the fog.

I woke up just after 5am.

Everything was fresh in my mind and my face was wet.

I'm not a great believer in dreams as pre-cursors for coming events, and the wet face ... well, I sweat at nights ... but to be able to remember the entire dream? That is strange.

I know one day I will have another dog!

I think I know he'll be called Leo.

But will he resemble the puppy of my dream?

Sym: Training

We began Sym’s training almost immediately.

We taught him how to deal with a multitude of cuddles, hugs and snogs and I taught him how to fall asleep upside down on my chest as I lay in the sofa ... something he never forgot or grew too old for.

Of course, there was a serious side to Sym’s early training regime, such as the ‘prevention of a pee-and-poo-stained-carpet’ program. Basically this involved observation, patience, quick reflexes and the ability to point a peeing puppy in the right direction (away from you) to avoid a soaking.

Within a week, in which many a stain was created and painstakingly removed, we had a puppy that would willingly use training pads to relieve himself. Pee’s and poo’s could then be wrapped up in the pad and safely disposed of with a minimum of fuss and no carpet scrubbing.

Having achieved that milestone, it was simply a case of reducing the number of puppy pads until there was only one left, then moving it nearer and nearer towards the backdoor and the garden.

Of course, during this time he would pee and poo outdoors, but only if we were with him.

We expected his training progress to be slow but Sym proved to be a willing and able student.

Sit, paw and stay were learned within a few a few short weeks of his arrival and we, in turn, learned that puppies prefer garlic sausages to regular puppy training treats. After receiving his second puppy inoculation, this discovery proved to be very useful in his further outdoor training.

Recall was so easy with garlic sausages!

Later in life his preferences would change and cheddar cheese would become the love-treat of his life.

He would do anything, and quite often everything, to get a cube of cheese.

In the park ... Hailey Park ... we played games; ran with him, hid from him, chased him and practiced his re-call to perfection ... almost.

In the park ... still Hailey Park ... we started to play the game he loved most: chasing tennis balls!

In the park ... yes, the Hailey one ... I found the peace and pleasure that comes with walking a dog.

And he discovered squirrels which he would fruitlessly chase through the copse, barking incessantly at tree trunks every time they managed to escape.

...

When you have a puppy in the house you learn things.

You learn, for instance, that everyone else knows how to train a puppy far better than you do!

Advice comes thick and fast and variety of training techniques are brought to your attention. And suddenly, as if by magic, every TV channel seems to be showing the latest Victoria Stilwell or Cesar Milan shows. And, whichever one’s training methods you choose, you will end up being in the wrong camp and being told off by someone ... Stilwell is wishy-washy; Milan’s techniques are cruel.

Anyway, we bought books! We bought lots of books. And we read them ... ignored them mostly, but we read them.

We decided to use common sense whilst training Sym and used the kindness and reward method.

As it turned out, and on reflection, whereas I thought we were using the Barbara Woodhouse method of training, we actually ended up using a combination of the Stilwell and Milan methods, or at least variations thereof.

Still ... my handsome boy turned out alright, didn’t he?

Sym: How the Bond Was Forged

One day in late June of 2005, after several months of wheedling and moaning, my wife finally gave in to my request for a dog.

Not just any dog, either. I wanted a Border Collie!

Needless to say, within moments of her resistance crumbling and giving me the go-ahead, I was trawling the internet looking for someone selling puppies.

Most available Border Collie puppies were in distant regions of Wales or in England; too far to drive easily, so I turned my attention to the local newspaper small ads. Almost immediately an ad leapt out at me: ‘Border Collie puppies to good homes. £100’

Of course, I was straight on the phone. The excitement of a schoolboy awaiting the start of the school summer holidays was rising inside of me and I’m pretty sure that I made a very poor job of concealing it as I made an appointment to see the puppies.

The farmer (for they were farm puppies) on the other end of the phone must have immediately known he had already made a sale.

So, two days later, we went to Merthyr Tydfil to see, and hopefully select, a puppy.

The farm was located in the valley below the Merthyr Tydfil Mountain Railway. On the drive up there I managed to keep my boyish enthusiasm under control but, as we drove down the county lane and approached the farm, I felt me excitement resurface and had the feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I felt as I once did as a child on the eve of my birthday! I just know I was going home with a dog!

I have to admit that Julie, my wife, was taking this all rather well. She was all “let’s wait and see” and “Let’s be sensible about this” but I could tell she was a little excited too. She was hiding it well, but she was excited. I know it!

As we pulled into the farmyard we could see a Spaniel and a Border collie lying by a barn door, but no puppies.

The farmer came out to greet us and after some brief introductions, he led us to the barn and opened the half door.

Out came mum and her six puppies. There were two typical black and white pups and four grey and white. All of the grey and white pups had parallel white spots running down their backs making them look like plump, fluffy dominoes. One of them had a pink nose!

The farmer left us for a while to play with the puppies and to make a selection.

We knew what was supposed to happen now ... the right puppy would choose us, and not we the puppy.

So we let them mill around our feet and stroked and patted. They engaged in puppy rough and tumble and for the most part ignored us. Mum, having found us unworthy of interest, took herself off to a tractor in one of the out buildings and lay underneath it next to a bulldog that we had previously not noticed.

One by one the puppies left us to follow mum until we were left alone in the farmyard.

Or so we thought.

Behind us the puppy with the pink nose sat calmly and looked us up and down.

Julie bent down and offered a hand for him to sniff.

He sniffed.

He came closer and sat at our feet looking up, his tail was wagging.

He was not the biggest of the puppies, but he certainly wasn’t the smallest. His flanks were grey, his chest white and down his back a thin black stripe and the white domino spots.

His nose was almost entirely pink.

His beautiful brown eyes our gaze and we knew there and then that we had just been selected to be his new family!

A short time later ‘puppy’ (for he had not yet become Sym) sat in a cardboard box on my lap as Julie drove us towards the A470 and home.

Most of the journey was spent with ‘puppy’ resting his front paws on the lip of the box and looking out of the window wagging his tail. Every so often he turned his attention to me, climbing out of his box and giving me a lick on the chin.

This was all so new to him; new people, a car journey and someone to lick!

His head became heavy, his eyes closed and he slept in my arms until we arrived home.

As Julie parked the car he awoke. He looked me square in the face then leapt.

His front paws landed on my shoulders and his tongue assaulted my face.

At that moment I knew that I loved that puppy.

At that moment he became ‘my dog’.

At that moment the unbreakable bond between us was forged.

Puppy Love!