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Gotcha #4

Well that sneaked up on us, today is four years to the day of when Tilley first puked in our car … erm … what I mean is, that today is her fourth gotcha day!

Insert lots of soppy stories about how she is the best dog in the world and none other gets anywhere close. And tons of funny stories about how she makes us laugh. And how she shows us how she is the smartest cookie in the dog biscuit jar every day. Well that will just bore you to bits and anyway you know that this is true, if you have ever met The Diva 🙂

So here is a wee handful of pictures of her life with us over the last year.

Ain’t life with a dog brill?

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Three is the magic number

Today is Tilley’s gotcha day, three years with us.

It’s been so great to have her around. Her legs are good, yes now and again she jars it and have a day or two limping. But her tail is wagging high and happy to go walkies.

She even started to like driving, when we get going she lays down on my lap, though still keep an eye on my driving. She have now learnt the last roundabout before we get to Mum, she squeals/whines like no tomorrow as soon as we get to it.

She got a few friends she loves to go play with, funny that she is very good off lead when other dogs are around. Some morning we get to meet 5-7 other dogs and she get a good sniff and run.

Yes she is still a right old Diva and tries to boss us around and is sometimes hard work. But no matter what they said in that article where they said dogs don’t like hugs, she demands them, Pressing her head in, leaning hard against us and if we don’t do it right we get a pad with her paw.

She started on raw food and she is much better for it. She also get a bone from the butchers about every week and is utterly knackered after an hour chewing away.

Oooops I forgot, we visited Dogs Trust at Darlington and they remembered Tilley 🙂

Sit down here is a few snaps of her over the last year.

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Gotcha day mark two

2015-08-31 19.56.49So Tilley has been with us for two years now and we have hardly noticed the time go by. She’s always been with us, hasn’t she?

As friends who have seen us with our mutt will attest, we love our little diva.

She’s got us sussed out and we do anything to her begging call, mainly belly rubs and treats.

All the rules we set on day one are of course strictly upheld. HA! Got you fooled, she is on the sofa, upstairs and on our bed. And the feeding from the table hasn’t gone that far that she has her own plate and seat, but she is working on it.

She been through the mill with us: operations, from which she has healed as well as she can. Sadly, she has arthritis in her hips and the elbows. Though there was no sign at all when we walked up to Stickle Tarn in the Lake District the other week. In and out of the rock pools, jumping from boulders to boulders like she’s done this all her life.


And then there were the many foster dogs. We finally learned that our little diva is a one-dog-in-the-house sort of a girl. Though she did help us fantastically well with the other dogs, they clearly were calmer and more settled with us and Tilley.

Walking on a loose lead happened a few months ago, after many harnesses and training tricks. Though she does tell me off when I don’t walk her before 8am!

Our new campervan she loves much more than the old van. She will happily sit up front and look at the world go by. We can barely put the camper bed down before she is up there spinning and digging around, making her own bed. Right in the middle and on top of both our sleeping bags.

A few weeks back we went camping with many of our friends and she was very content with the extra crowd – and belly rubs – just laid there on my lap or in campervan sleeping away.

2015-05-03--15.48.00-IMG_1043 She keeps us on our toes as she is very clever and learns things in the blink of an eye. So, new names for toys, friends and food she clicks on right away. Which means we have tried English, French and talking the first letter of words. Because any hint of “walkies” or “carrot” or “food”… you get the picture… she goes bonkers.

She might be smart but she still asks for belly rubs, food, walks etc in the same way so at times it is a guessing game – what do you want, Tilley?! And backwards she will walk while doing funny shaking, growling sounds with her mouth.

She will tell us when it is time for us to cook or sit down and relax on the sofa. She really loves to chill out while we cook, and when we relax on the sofa she loves to drape herself across me so she can have a good old sleep.

Oh, it is time for walkies, is it, Tilley? Right, OK.

Happy Gotcha Day, Tilley Diva!

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This post is a bit crap

There is a dog shit in my gardenI grew up in the 70’s (yes I’m that old) and into the 80s and 90s there was a dog close at hand. Back then I, and other dog owners, never really spend much time picking up their deposits. The general rule was leave it where it fell, though if you were kind at heart and it was a hard deposit you would gently nudge it into the gutter.

In the 80’s there was a campaign started in Denmark where people would go around and put a little flags into the deposits they found on the pavements. It did the trick, somewhat, over the years more and more people started to pick up after their mutts. I can only guess that this turn of event also got the ball rolling over here and people started to pick up after their mutts.

Though this event didn’t spread to Paris, while I lived there I learned a brilliant skill. Keep one eye one the stunning architecture and the beautiful people and with the other you scan the path ahead, so that you can hot step past the many deposits that covers the French capitals streets. Who have never heard about the “PooperScooter” that zoomed about in Paris and picked up from lazy owners. It’s been a while since I was last in Paris, so I don’t know if it is better now.

In the last many years I haven’t always owned a dog but I have always been a dog lover. It saddens me to see that there is still a good amount of people who don’t pick up after their best friend. This is where the I have made good use of the skill I learned in Paris, though it is not one you really want to use.

Not picking up after your dog is right up there with RLJ – Red Light Jumpers, cyclist who makes the cyclist who DO stop for red – look bad. I hate to think what other people think about me when I out walking Tilley and we happen to walk past someone else’s deposit, that she didn’t create and I didn’t pick up.

I’m not sure what I find the saddest: A deposit left laying on the pavement or in the grass in the park etc. Vs. the left plastic bag with a deposit in hanging from a tree on a nature walk, next to the entrance to a park etc. I think it is the latter, since the owner has done something, but couldn’t be bothered to do the rest, but went out of their way to tuck it into a drystone wall. Please take it home or to the nearest bin.

Yes, you could have forgotten a bag or not seen the deposit being produced. But there isn’t really an excuse for not having one – 300 Tesco Everyday Value Nappy Bags for £0.35 – yes that is 35 pence for three hundred bags! Even if you have to double bag, it is still much cheaper than a normal doggy poo bags, thanks for the heads up Varity.

big scoop dogs trustSo please folk pick up from your K-9, we all only want the best for our little fury friends.

I wrote this many moons ago and was planing to take some pictures of the worst offenders, but never really got stated. But today is a good time to post it even with the lack of photos, because :

Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, has teamed up again with Keep Britain Tidy for The Big Scoop on June 13th 2014.

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Review: Arden Grange Puppy Junior dog food

Arden Grange Puppy Junior dog foodWe adopted Tilley from the Dog’s Trust in September 2013 and got a free 2kg bag of Arden Grange Puppy/Junior (chicken and rice) as part of the welcome pack. As she’d already been fed this brand while being cared for by the Dog’s Trust, it made sense to continue using it. She clearly does well on this food: her coat is extremely shiny, her eyes bright and (forgive us for giving too much information here – dog owners will understand!) her “deposits” of a good consistency.

We did some research into Arden Grange Puppy Junior dog food – which we’d never heard of before getting Tilley – and realised that it is a high-quality brand, which scores a better-than-average 3.4 out of 5 on whichdogfood.co.uk. (It’s good to know that a lot of rescue dogs are benefiting from a high quality food while in kennels!) We also approve of the ethics of this family company, particularly that the food is made using traceable, sustainable food stocks, with support for local farmers and no GM ingredients.

2013-10-06--10.09.41_IMG_0434It’s not the cheapest food available, but we think it is worth the extra cash. We pay £34.90 for 12kg (a discounted rate) from www.zooplus.co.uk/ which works out at about 60-80 pence per day.

For the first two months of her time with us, Tilley adored her Arden Grange kibble. It’s small-sized and she clearly found it very palatable. We’d feed her twice a day in toys such as the Kong Wobbler and milk bottles with holes cut out, and she had great fun at mealtimes. Feeding her in toys was a great way of putting her collie-cross mind to work, and tiring her out! She found the kibble so appealing and tasty that we were even able to use it on the odd occasion as a training treat when out and about.

Recently, however, she started to turn her nose up at kibble at mealtimes. She wouldn’t touch it dry, so we started moistening it with a little warm water, and feeding small portions, rather than serving it in toys. We decided to contact Arden Grange’s nutritional adviser, Ness Bird, for advice on two issues: Tilley going off her kibble, and her tendency to hyperactivity.

We were very impressed with Ness Bird’s response: personalised, friendly and comprehensive. She firstly provided an interesting fact sheet which dispels the commonly-held belief that high-protein food leads to hyperactivity. And she reassured us that it’s not unusual for adolescent dogs to go off their food when their growth rate slows down, and she gave us a number of ways to approach this, which may also help with Tilley’s high energy levels.

2013-09-08--12.02.34_IMG_7301We’re to review Tilley’s feeding amounts, including treats and extras – it seems that we were feeding too much; moisten her kibble with water or a tiny taste of dissolved Marmite if she isn’t keen on it; and consider feeding an adult variety with a different meat source. Ness offered to send us samples of a couple of adult food varieties, plus a liver training treat, and also gave us a couple of recipes for healthy treats to make at home: liver cake and fish cake.

Tilley has since wolfed down her smaller portions of kibble, moistened with a little warm water, and is certainly thriving on the food. She gets many compliments from people we meet on her shiny, soft and silky coat (especially from small children, who she loves to lick!). And our vet agreed that she is in really great condition.

Thank you, Ness and Arden Grange. We will follow your advice carefully. Tilley looks forward to receiving the free samples and in the meantime, we’ll get creative with the treat recipes and continue her training!

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Playing pet detective: tracing Tilley’s history

First picture of Tilley aka Scrappy at 6 months oldHere’s “Scrappy” when she was first rescued by Leitrim Animal Welfare in Ireland. Read all about how we traced her history…

We’ve now had our wonderful Tilley for seven weeks and we’re all having a ball. Everyone who meets her falls in love with this little cheeky, amusing, affectionate collie cross. “Such a pretty dog!” they exclaim. “Aren’t you a bonny one?” as she wriggles with excitement and tries to lick their ears off.

We couldn’t imagine life without her madly wagging tail greeting us every morning, her demands for belly rubs at every opportunity, her joyful running in figures of eight about the park, her cute squeaky yawns, or the way she plonks herself down for cuddles at night.

But we couldn’t help being curious about her past life and the experiences which brought her to live with us in a little market town at the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales.

We knew from Dog’s Trust Darlington that she’d been rescued in Ireland and brought over for rehoming, but nothing more. So I began the search by contacting the Dog’s Trust again to ask for any other information they might have on file for Scrappy, as she was known.

A very helpful response from Katie in Darlington came quickly: according to their records, Scrappy had been picked up as a stray and handed to the Dog’s Trust via Leitrim Animal Welfare, then transported from Belfast to Cairnryan in a purpose-built animal ambulance.

I discovered Leitrim Animal Welfare had a Facebook group so dropped them a quick message to ask if they by any chance remembered Scrappy (and her brother, Squishy). This morning we were rather choked up to receive the following lovely message about Tilley (Scrappy) from Andrea at Leitrim:

Oh wow – Vicky, thanks so much for getting in touch, I’m thrilled to see Tilly looking so happy and so well. I’ve printed the photos off to show the staff, they will be delighted! Tilley and Squishy came in to our centre on 13.07.2013. They were found on the N4 in Carrick-on-Shannon and it is a very busy main road. Linda, the person who found them held onto them for 3 weeks in the hope that their owner would come forwards, but no-one did, so presuming they had been dumped she bought them to our centre. I’m just so happy that you got in touch, thank you and we are all sending a huge hug for Tilley.

Andrea also sent the photograph – see the top picture – she has of ‘Scrappy’ when she first arrived at the Leitrim centre. As Andrea put it, “She just sat down and smiled as if to say, ‘OK, I’m here now, what’s the craic?'”! That seems to perfectly sum up the happy-go-lucky nature that we now know and love!

Tilley’s tired after her day of running around, but she’s managed a special message for everyone who helped her…

whats the craic
It seems incredible that Tilley, once wandering a busy road in serious danger, is now lying contented at my feet as I type this, thanks to the efforts of many caring people. We are very grateful to Linda, the lady who found and rescued Tilley, to Leitrim Animal Welfare and to the Dog’s Trust. You all gave Tilley the second chance she so deserved! We’re also happy to learn that her sibling, Squishy, appears also to have been rehomed from Darlington Dog’s Trust. All best wishes and wagging tails from Tilley to her brother.

We’ll be updating this blog about our life with Tilley, so watch this space!

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We got a cat

We have tried with no avail to get Tilley interested in balls so that we can play fetch. But nothing helped even cutting a little hole and filling it with food didn’t get her excited at all.

Today Peli tried to give her a ball of tread and we now know that both the Dogs Trust and our biology teachers have been telling us lies.

Cause Tilley loved the tread and went utterly mad around the house with it.

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Meet Tilley

Today we picked up Scrappy, from now on known as Tilley, from Darlington Dog’s Trust. We had a 45 minute talk about us what to expect and what support we can get from the Dogs Trust and then filled out a few forms. We were pleased to get four weeks’ free insurance from the trust, as well as a welcome pack of food, a harness and lead, a subscription to Pet24, and all Tilley’s veterinary information. All this for a donation of £80. It is such a good way to welcome a dog into the family.

Tilley was all over the place at the end of the lead, this way then that way. One of the staff from the trust gave her a bone and she jumped right into the car and crate happily. We had a hour and a half journey back, but we heard nothing from her, not even when she puked in the car. Poor thing was a bit car sick, clearly. A quick stop to clean the crate and a little more talking into the car we were off. She was rather quiet after that and fell fast asleep.

Arrived home and she was rather happy to get out of the car, a whole new world for her and tons of new exciting smells. We closed the downstairs up so that she had a free run of the kitchen and the yarden (garden + yard, see what we did there…). Nothing major, just the nose everywhere, that corner to this corner.

After 20 minutes we sat down for some dinner (lunch for you lot from down south) and she just looked at us eating our food. After a minute or so of that she laid down and enjoyed the sun, though with a keen ear, nose and eye on what we were doing.

No barking and very gentle jumping, we just have to get used to having this trip hazard around our legs as we are moving around the house. She will need a bath but that will be tomorrow, because she does have that kennel smell. Welcome home, Tilley! I’m sure we’re all going to have lots of adventures together.

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The Dogs Trust

Well after a few years of nagging I have finally managed to drag Peli to a place to look for a dog to have. Lots of talking to and fro over the last years – rescue or kennel dog? Listed the pro and cons about where to get it from, what kind, size etc etc etc. I have always had dogs while growing up and pretty much all my friends and family has dogs. Peli have grown up dog less – cats and horses was her thing. Though while on tour we meet plenty of lovely dogs, both wild/farm and at friends and this have turned Peli around. Luck would have it that her asthma isn’t playing up while around dogs and she really likes walking them too, she even scooped the poop 🙂

After a lot of talking and surfing various dog related websites, we had narrowed it down to a Lurcher or Working Cocker Spaniel. So today we went, pretty much last minute, jumped into the car and went.

We arrived at Darlington Dogs Trust was greeted by great staff and went around to look at the dogs there. We found beautiful Lizzy the whippet/lurcher who we fell for right away, but sadly (for us only) she was picked by others while we where there.

Though then there was young Scrappy a “border” collie cross (crossed with what?) who came and said hallo to us – full of beans, 6 months old, gentle, lots of jumping and no big time licking. It is hard not to like her even when we said that border collies was not the dog for us. She was all over the place on the lead, though that is something we can train out of her.

She will for sure keep us fit, lucky where we live we got three length walks for her to do – doggy park one 2min away, doggy park 6min away and 10min away the Yorkshire Dales hours of fun!

Here is a couple of snaps, the only two that we got with her, all the other photos are where she recently was 🙂

We will pick up Scrappy (but soon to become Tilley) next Saturday, can’t wait!