6th February

The news of compulsory microchipping of dogs by April 2016 is good news.

It is a start as it does need back up. Most of the dogs we now deal with are chipped and chipped dogs still end up in pounds with their chip details out of date or an owner who will not turn up to claim them but eventually it will impact on back street breeders.

Here is a link to the BBC News article.

Below is the response from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (which can also be viewed here).

5th February

Sorry it's me today folks!
Alison is have a rest after a very exhausting day. I am sure she will have recharged her batteries for the next blog.

            Alison mention in her previous blog Staffie with Responsible Owner a Facebook Group.

 Ali Taylor, of Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and The Paul O'Grady show For the Love Of  Dogs fame, started this group 2 years ago. It now has 1,790 members, it is an open group of which I am happy to say I am part of the administration team along with 6 others.

Sit nicely for the camera!

The group is about responsible Staffordshire Bull Terrier owners, Promoting education and the positive side of the breed.
It is also about having fun with our dogs and each week there are different fun competitions that are free to enter on the page.Supporting one another and promoting this breed positively. We pride ourselves on keeping this page a friendly one.

Support is given in many ways, behavioural issues, which Ali Taylor often deals with. Dogs urgently needing re homing.
One such case was a 6 year old Staffie who needed re homing as his owner had died. A lady was  interested, she had been home checked and already had an elderly Staffie, but the lady had no transport to get to see the dog. Someone kindly volunteered to pick the lady up and take her there and drop her home again. Success, the Staffie is now in a new home!  
Help comes in many forms and members are all over the U.K stretching as far as Australia, S.Africa and America.
 Why not take a look? I think you would be pleasantly surprised and who knows you may decide to become a member. 

Sadly on another note......We all have at sometime known or heard of the public's perception of our beloved breed, through newspaper article's. Experiencing pedestrians crossing the road as we walk our dogs, to comments such as they are demon dogs, those dogs bite etc. ..
Well,  I visited a well known rescue last week. Here they strip all dogs of their collars and leads, for health and safety reasons and issue them with new ones. They are the same for every dog with no distinction on breed or sex, except for their registration number tag. I was shown a collar and lead that was taken off of a dog that was bought in. As you can see from the picture the size of the collar. The lead has been re modelled with a chain and fasteners to attach to the original handle and clasp. The chain is such a large gauge that it could pull an articulated lorry and would not break! The collar would break away long before the chain. The rescue informed me that they have even had dogs with these type of collars on and the collar had been padlocked!
What type of society do we have today that feels justified in placing such a barbaric thing around a dogs neck???? 

On a happier note...

Honey and Tara

 Tara is doing well and has settled in with all of our 4, she will now cuddle up next to them instead of sleeping separate or jumping off the sofa when they get on.
 She loved the snow and ran around with Oscar, it was beautiful to watch, amazingly she can out run him!
I now have three alarm clocks to tell me it's their dinner time Daisy, Nugget and Tara. It is not until the food bowls come out Honey and Oscar show their heads. Tara is fed last and she does not attempt to go to any of the others bowl but waits patiently for hers.


Lastly Honey and Nugget, will be going to Crufts on Thursday the 7th March, Terrier Day to be in the Temptation Alley team. Honey I am hopeful will succeed, she has never let me down before but there is always the first time. While Nugget will probably pick up all the treats, the little tubs,  see someone or another dog and decides she wants to say hello! Which no doubt will bring roars of laughter from the crowd.
If this gets someone to reconsider a staffie then I am all for it!







 Author Valerie

4th February

Apologies for late and brief blog. The dogs are taking a back seat whilst we prepare for the annual inspection of the Riding School. Jessie and I worked our socks off today. Inspection is 10am Tuesday so early start for us. Rosie and Angel accompanied us today and will be in attendance tomorrow too, Rosie had great fun skipping around while we swept and shovelled.

Received an email from someone we met with their Staffie outside Pets At Home before one of our walks.
They adopted her from K9 Rescue which homes all the strays from the local councils.
I think she is stunning!

Also a picture of Ali Taylors new foster, Ernie, with Ali's dog Squirt.
Ali works at Battersea and appeared in the Paul O'Grady programmes For The Love Of Dogs.
 She also runs a Facebook group Staffy With  Responsible Owner SWRO.

2nd February

Val tells me that Oscar is back to his normal self today (whatever that is!) Her words not mine. It is good to hear that he is o.k. though, apparently getting fed up with lead walks already so that is going to be difficult for them.

Oscar being 'normal.'

Lexus' hole in the sofa has been expertly repaired with duct tape by my son.

Chloe came to see us today and she is looking fabulous and a lot less pink. She has hair on her tummy and on her legs and paws, I wish I had had my camera handy but we have been promised some more photos soon.

Tiny Chloe when she first came to us.

1st Feb

Today was very eventful but I will stick to the dog related incidents.
Oscar, Val's dog went out into the garden, something caught his eye and he took off only to slip and lose his back end, which twisted under him. He screamed and screamed and was unable to stand up. Val rushed out and gathered him up and carried him into the house. Gradually he was able to stand. They took him immediately to the vet where he had a thorough check over but they found nothing seriously wrong, he has some grazing down the inside of one leg. He has been given pain relief and must stay on lead walks for a week or so and be monitored.
It was a nasty shock for Val, what worries our dogs give us! We hope Oscar makes a speedy recovery.

Oscar posing for a special photo for 'Staffies are softer than you think.'

I walked Khan and Spryte with Steven today. It was unbelievably muddy after yet more rain in the night and water is lying on the fields.
Lexus stayed at home with the run of the living room and two sofas at his disposal. I have been taking him up to the village football field and giving him a run round there so as to avoid getting his paws too wet as that is what causes his nail bed infections. It is impossible at the moment to go down our garden without getting their paws very wet and muddy.
On our return I found he had chewed a hole in the leather (well plastic) sofa and pulled all the stuffing out!
Dave was not impressed.

The damaged sofa.

The hole.

Tonight he pushed his way between Sara and Tom on the undamaged sofa, I think that is what's called, 'Playing Gooseberry!'

31st January

I got rather carried away yesterday with the GPS tracking collars and did not tell you about Rosie.

Rosie was 'helping' me as I 'poo picked' the top field when I saw her looking at Buddy in the paddock below.
I am not sure if I have mentioned Buddy before, he is an old Labrador who belongs to an American lady who lives on the other side of the hill. Whenever she is away visiting the States she leaves him with the Foreign home-help and he invariably escapes and comes looking for any bitch in heat.
  He had an encounter with Bo-Bo several years ago and although Bo is now spayed and there are no entire females, he still calls in when on his travels.
It is quite annoying and very difficult to get close to him and catch him as his mind is only on one thing!  His back legs are beginning to go, yet he seems to have survived wandering loose for years, even regularly crossing a main road.

 Over the years I have let several of my dogs meet him and even if they are not normally good with other dogs they never have a problem with him. He must give off a testosterone charged 'I am only interested in one thing,' type scent because they all just sniff and then come away.
Because of this I had no worries about Rosie going over to see him but as I watched she did take off towards him but instead looked at me. She was checking with me to see if she had my permission to go.
 I am a bit slow on the uptake and as I have said, I had no problem with her approaching him but I realised she was giving me an opportunity to direct her, if I ignored her now why should she listen to me in the future?                  

I called her back to me and she came immediately, away from Buddy! I was so proud of her. What a great dog to check with me before she did something and I almost missed it!  Now the first steps of her coming away from other dogs was in place and it all came from her.

She did meet him later when he was in the garden and she was very submissive and came away when called.
What a lovely moment!

30th January

Still January! My, it's a long month.
It was good to be back catching up with some of the million jobs to do, after my course at the beginning of the week.

It seems I never told you about the weekend at the end of last year when one of the Spaniels from the farm went missing.
 They are mother and daughter and cannot be allowed out loose together else they take off, sometimes rapidly and go hunting in the woods together, eventually returning, muddy and exhausted after a few hours. The problem is avoided by keeping one on the lead whilst they are out and being careful not to leave the door open.
This has rarely, if ever, occurred when the lady of the house was in charge, but a fairly frequent occurrence when responsibility lies with the governor. We have been used to keeping an eye out for the wayward Gals and covering, on occasions, to protect the Gov from an ear bashing.
This happened when the lady of the house was away for the weekend.
I had walked the dogs on the Friday evening but it wasn't until the Saturday, when we were in the middle of lessons that we learnt  they had taken off soon after the walk and only the younger one returned.
By the time we heard they were already beside themselves with worry and had been searching all morning.
Jessie and I looked when we had a break and it coloured the whole Saturday, but by the time we went home  in the dark, there was still no sign.
Still nothing by Sunday afternoon, hope of a happy ending was fading.

Then at 6pm a text to say she had been found safe and well!

Apparently she was caught in a fence by her fur! Someone found her and rang the number on her tag.
Here, as people used to Staffords, we did struggle a little and lose some respect. To be out for two nights when you were only caught by your fur! Can you imagine any self respecting Staffie doing that?
However, the joy and relief that she was safe and unharmed was what really mattered.

As a result they invested in GPS tracking collars. Which have been a huge success and on a couple of occasions when they have escaped they have been tracked in no time with someone on the laptop and another on a mobile following directions.
Until last week when Bo-Bo returned, without her collar and it could not be tracked. That was an expensive collar to lose.
Spending as much time there as I do I kept an eye out.
Then, this morning, I was told although they could not track it they had located the last place they had a signal for it. This indicated it was somewhere just through the gate, on the left, in the top field.
 Rosie and I set out.
This was roughly where the last signal was, it must be near a fence or a thicket. I checked the stock fence at the side, there were lots of rabbit runs under thick cover, a good place to lose a collar. Rosie had charged up the hill and was the other side of the fence in the woods. I walked up to her, how had she got through?  There was a space under the stock fence and lying there one GPS tracking collar!  Undone but otherwise intact.
I had been feeling fed up but it is amazing how immensely satisfying something so seemingly small can be.