Healthy eating!

Worn out!

It's been much colder this week and Hugo and Pip love it - the slightest bit of frost and they're out there, hoovering up the decking with their tongues and romping in the grass. Pip's not quite so hardy as Hugo though and likes to come in for a nice warm by the fire.

Toby and I took them for a lovely long walk this morning through Standish Woods -  the car park was quite full when we got there so we went a different path from normal and found some really quiet and secluded spots which was fantastic and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We did meet someone riding a horse that Hugo was quite keen to play with  - Pip was more interested in trying to eat what it had deposited - but apart from them there were only a couple of other dog walkers around. As usual Hugo and Pip had a wonderful time dragging us up and down banks and round trees - they are like small children with all the leaves down and the frost made them nice and crisp.

It's normally Pip on the sofa but tonight it was Hugo's turn.

The long walk did the trick and Hugo and Pip have been asleep for most of the day, apart from when I was trying to do some baking this afternoon that is. They will insist on lying where you have to keep stepping over them so you feel like you've taken part in an obstacle race by the time you've finished. I don't know how but they seemed to guess one of the things I was making was some dog biscuits for them - I have made them before but this time I put some liver pate into the mixture so they could probably smell it. By the time the biscuits came out the oven they were both drooling and I had to blow on a couple to get them cool enough for them to have straight away. I think I can safely say they were a huge success as they have eaten almost half of them already (there were about 50 to start with). I also made a fruit cake and discovered Hugo and Pip are quite partial to the dried mixed fruit  which rather surprised me - the only raisin Sid would eat was if it was covered in chocolate! Just hope it doesn't have a detrimental effect on their stomachs!

Before Hugo

On 17th February 2012 I was woken at 5am in the morning by our long-haired Japanese Akita, Sid who wanted to go out. He was in absolute agony and his stomach was as hard as iron. I tried comforting him and encouraged him to walk but to no avail. By 6.30am my husband phoned the vet and they said to bring him straight in. By this stage Sid had collapsed and could not walk so three of us rolled him onto a blanket to carry him to the car - no easy task with an 11.5 stone dog. We were too late and by 7am he was dead - he was 12 years old and we had had him since he was 10 months old as a failed police dog. We vowed then to never have another dog as this had been just too painful for us.

Two months later Sid had left such a hole in our lives that all four of us, my husband, Martin our two sons, Daniel & Toby, and myself discovered we had all been looking at Akita rescue sites and so on Sunday 29th April I filled in the application form to adopt an 18month old dog called Panda. Two days later I had a phone call asking if we would possibly be able to foster, with the intention of eventually adopting, a seven month old puppy called Hugo. His family circumstances had changed so was being left for up to 16 hours a day at home alone which was in Mansfield, Nottingham. Not only that but the lady owner had left taking her other, smaller dog with her so Hugo was in desperate need for some human company.




We agreed and it was arranged we would meet his male owner at Tamworth services at 10am on 5th May, this being about half way between us.