9th November



Rhea Agility

 We are gearing up now for Discover Dogs on Sunday.
Sandi BC is coming with me to give support as she did last year but she is not bringing cassie as we are going to take Boycie. Boycie is currently being fostered by Sally so she is driving down and meeting us there.
We will do the morning, joining John and Gwen Laker on the Welfare Stand and Val and Stuart will take over with their very good dogs for the afternoon.
There will be a SBT agility team display on Saturday and Sunday with our friend Ali Taylor from Battersea with her dog Squirt and Kerry Crick with her two Staffords Neighla and Rhea ( who is a Guildford Stafford)
Sadly Kerry and Rhea will be there on Saturday not Sunday so we will miss them.

Smudge is doing very well so far with David and Helen. My thanks to Val for getting the pictures up which I was unable to do. You can see what a hard time Smudge is having of it! We bought her a coat today as they are worried she is feeling the cold.
It is so much calmer here without her, although she was delightful, and the other dogs have settled down.
Things have rather caught up with me,however,and I am struggling to stay awake in the evenings and write the blog.



Val with Honey who will be working the crowds at Discover Dogs

 One of our blog followers has offered a foster home to the 10 month old male I mentioned in yesterdays blog. It is a very generous and kind offer but we have regretfully decided we are unable to offer rescue back up for this dog at this time.

8th November

Despite all the encouragement, all the campaigns, things seem to be worse than ever.
I had two calls today from a lady locally wanting to re-home a 10 month old male.
They had agreed to look after him temporarily for a friend of their son but weeks had turned into months until it became apparent his owner wasn't coming back.

They didn't want him, he was after all, not their dog.

They had two Spaniels and he started to fight with the male.
They had ended up with a dog they never wanted in the first place and now he was picking on their own dog.
They wanted him gone.

So they advertised him on Gumtree as free to good home.
Realising the dangers of this they had turned down single men, stipulating he needed a family home.
They had found homes for him twice.
One they had another male dog  so that didn't work.(I think I had a call from this home)
In the next home they had a 10 month old child, he knocked it over.
Desperate to find him somewhere they had paid to have him castrated.

Now they were contacting us.

We were unable to help as we are already running four dogs over our limit.
We could put him on our website but there is no guarantee  he would find a home and they wanted him gone quickly      also he sounded as if he needed some training, if we advertised him and someone came along would we really feel comfortable homing such a dog.
Yet your heart goes out to him, here is a young dog nobody wants and whose future is looking decidedly bleak.
This is not a one off, this is happening to hundreds of Staffords throughout our country everyday.

To end on a positive note.

Smudge appears to have landed on her paws with David and Helen fostering her, so far going well with the cats and getting pampered as these photos show! ( Sorry cannot get them to load.)
By taking her in when we did we saved her from suffering the same fate as this 10 month old and so many others.                                                      

6th November

On Friday we walked the route for the STAFFORD WALK 
My daughter Jessie and my friend Steven came with me along with Jade, Chance and the pup Smudge.
I have to say I am really excited, it is a lovely walk and we start by walking over the bridge in Godalming.
Even with three of us it created quite an impression and the thought of fifteen/twenty or more Staffords with their owners walking over the bridge showing we are proud of our breed was fantastic!


Smudge

 I do hope lots of you will be inspired to come along and join us and make the idea a reality.

It is easy walking and very pleasant but quite wet in places, at least it was on Friday, wear wellies!
There are two open fields where it may be tempting to let your dog off lead for a run but please DON'T as your dog may be fine but others not. The purpose of the walk is not to exercise your dog but to show publicly that Staffies with responsible owners are lovely dogs and we proud to own them.

It takes less than an hour and Smudge, who is only three months old, had no trouble at all completing it.

David Egan has taken Smudge as a foster, as long as she gets on with Helen's cats. She and Shadow are already firm friends.
This will give us a much needed break and allow us to give more attention to our other dogs, things are already much calmer, although we loved having her.



Playing with uncle Lexus

 Battersea's Staffie promotion is still being well received with people talking about it after church today. It is really spot on warming the most unlikely people towards them.
Well done Battersea.

3rd November

Just over one week until  Discover Dogs  12th/13th November.
We will be on SBT Welfare stand on Sunday 13th
The following w/e  Sunday 20th November don't forget our Stafford Walk  11am start from Pets at Home Godalming.    Join us and walk your Stafford with pride.

This morning we asked a friend to help us clear leaves in the garden and have a bonfire.
As he arrived a tree surgeon who is working on my neighbours garden also arrived. ( My neighbour is having lots of clearing work done of very mature trees which have taken the light from our garden for years.)

Dave, inspired by the work already done, continued the clearing in our garden putting some old poultry houses onto the fire and removing the 'small' duck pond.

The effect when I returned after lunch was amazing. The lower branches of an enormous oak tree which had reached right across our whole garden, had been removed (I had not thought this possible) letting in so much light plus the other clearing means we have a lovely exercise area for the dogs, without doing anything else to it.
I have often felt our garden is a huge unused resource (since we stopped keeping poultry) but the way this has all come about in the space of a day is, as far as I am concerned, nothing short of a miracle.

Little Smudge has really settled down. Although she still has her moments she is a different dog to the crazy little thing that arrived on Friday night.
It is wonderful to watch Lexus playing with her (definitely softer than you think)
I feel we have come through the latest crises and the house is calm again.

I plan to walk the route for the Stafford Walk tomorrow

2nd November

Battersea have launched their campaign to promote Staffies and try to get more homes for their dogs.
www.battersea.org.uk/staffie 



Staffies.
They're softer than you think.

 I have seen the advert online but was surprised to have a large leaflet through our door today! Fantastic, quite big so you cant ignore it. I was just thinking how I would tell Ali our friend who works at Battersea that we had a leaflet and what a good idea as I tramped up the hill with Spryte and Chance.
I met a lady with a Ridgeback who asked, 'Are those Staffies?' It turned out she had read the Battersea leaflet and looked at their dogs as she had recently lost her other Ridgeback but she had young children and for Battersea children have to be eight upwards. So I told hr I was her local rescue and hopefully we have found a home right here in my village! Thanks Battersea!

Smudge and Chance both slept well after all their activity yesterday.



Hippo, not taken today.

 I saw little Hippo today who we homed over four years ago and who is the smallest Stafford ever! I was sorry to learn she has arthritis in three of her legs, not that you could tell as she jumped around.

1st November

The baby went through the night!
I felt decidedly more human today until tonight when I realised I had missed an appointment for a minor operation I had waited 4 months for!



Kerry and husband with Neighla an Rhea (right)

 A Stafford agility team are giving a display at Discover Dogs.
Our friend Ali Taylor who works at Battersea, and is part of the Staffie forum will be taking part with her dog Squirt. Ali and Squirt work tirelessly promoting SBT's and re-educating young people in their attitude towards dogs.
Also Kerry and her husband will be taking part with their dogs Neighla and Rhea (who was one of our puppies from 2009)
The teams had a practise at Battersea this weekend.


David Egan worked with Angel and Chance today as well as meeting Smudge who transformed from an unruly puppy into a well mannered dog in minutes, how does he do that?

In the evening we took Sandy, Chance and Smudge to Doghouse Agility with Anna.
Sandy was rather too excited but flew over the jumps.
Chance was so good Anna thought he must have done some before (I would think this is very unlikely) he is just a star.


The team during last Saturdays practise.

 Smudge was just there for socialisation, she is too small to do any jumping.

31st October

Smudge woke me at 5.45am.
Took her out and then had to take several of others out too, trying to ensure she did not wake the neighbourhood in the meantime.
Had 3 attempts at getting back to bed before she would settle and just as I managed it the alarm went off!
Felt completely wired all day.
She came with me to the bank to withdraw some of the cash she is spending and then to Pets at Home to spend it!
She attracted lots of attention.
She and Lexus have surprisingly become  best mates.

Dave drove down to Southampton to pick up Tara from Second chance rescue.
Apparently everyone there has fallen in love with her. She is a sweetie.
A quick visit to the vet for vaccine and then a dark drive over to Spangleberry kennels.

We are now full to bursting and one in kennels resources are stretched.