My love Of Dogs
I love all animals, but particularly donkeys and of course dogs. I always wanted a dog when I was little, but was never allowed as my parents preferred cats. Although I was bought a little puppy which I called Skip, but he was only in the house for a few days, and the cat decided she did not want any other 4 legged animal in the house and made his life a misery and asserted her authority by scratching him quite badly.
It was clear that the bad tempered moggy was not going to accept him, so we had to let him go – unfortunately. I thought it should have been the cat, but my parents ganged up with the cat, and I lost, and all my thoughts of ever having a dog faded.
My love Of Dogs
Then, when Steve asked me to marry him, I accepted with the proviso that we had a dog immediately. Of course he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me as his wife!!! so he had to agree to having a dog.
So when we came back from honeymoon, it was off to search for a German Shepherd puppy, as that was the only breed of dog that he would contemplate. I naturally wasn’t going to argue, as this was my chance to get a dog, so a few days later we picked up Tara, a 13 week old bundle of naughtiness.
She was a big part of our early married life, and caused mayhem for the first 5 years, even with me taking her to obedience training classes. She just didn’t want to grow up. It was just as well because when she was 5, our son Adrian came along, and took to him immediately and was very protective over him. Although she wasn’t too keen on other children, Adrian could do anything with her.
SAD BIT COMING UP – We had Tara until she was 13 years old, when she started to suffer with her health. We had to make a decision that the time had come and off to the vet we went (after giving her a T bone steak as her last supper, whilst Steve and I had sausages for tea!). That particular day was awful, and although I had every intention to be with her until the end, but our Vet who had known us for years, advised that it might be better if Steve was there.
I left the room and waited, in absolute pieces. Steve eventually emerged with tears in his eyes holding her lead, it was awful.
Once the deed had been done, it hit me, as to what we were going to do with her. Now me being me, didn’t want the norm, so I insisted that she was individually cremated (which cost an arm and a leg) and then deciding where we were going to bury her. I did not want to bury her at our present home, as I knew that we would not be staying there, and obviously didn’t want to leave her with strangers.
The vet told of us a pet crematorium near Penzance (as at this particular time, we were living in Launceston, in Corwnall). I pleaded with Steve that we drove down to see what it was like, so after about a 2 hour drive we arrived. We had a look around and I liked what I saw. We sorted out a little headstone and picked the place where we wanted to be laid to rest.
When we got home, I walked through the front door, burst into tears and said that Penzance was far too far away, as we wouldn’t go and visit her!! I know at this point, you probably think, who is this woman, she must be mad!! So after a complete waste of a day, I decided that I did not want her to go all the way down there, and I would keep her ashes until I decided where I wanted to put them.
I finally decided to scatter them in a favourite walk that she liked, which was near where we lived in Plympton, near Plymouth in Devon. Needless to say, we moved from there and have never been to visit where her ashes were scattered!!!!
We decided not to have any more dogs, as we both worked, and it would not be fair to leave a dog on its own, so many years went past until I saw an advertisement in our local paper, asking for puppy walkers for the Police. After Rolfe went I then decided to become a Volunteer for the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People Charity as a Boarder looking after puppies for short periods of time when their full time socialisers were on holiday etc. I enjoyed this very much and looked after various puppies of various breeds.
However 2017 all that changed and we decided to get a puppy of our own and after months and months of research Archie was the chosen one
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My love Of Dogs
Archie the Clumberdoodle
You can read about my other experiences below:
Puppy Walking For The Police
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Hearing Dogs For Deaf People
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Dog Sitting
Dog Sitting Henry & George
My love Of Dogs