Tilly at 11 months loves playing with her ball, if we are really lucky she will bring it back to us.
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puppy
The things we do for love
Getting a puppy has changed everything in our lives, including the garden. When we moved in, I removed the lawn and rammed the borders with bee friendly plants and flowers. This year when the chicken run went, it became even more of a jungle and probably the best it has ever looked.
It was however, not at all Tilly friendly. Pulling at plants as she doodle dashes to the bottom of the garden to dig up and eat the bark. Not ideal, as it turns out that so many, well actually nearly all plants in my garden were “toxic to dogs”. But Tilly comes first, and so to save my sanity, all dangerous plants have now been removed and replaced with a small lawned area. Some plants are spending the winter in my raised bed until I can decide where to put them.
I am now researching plants that are dog friendly and planning a new look for summer.
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Tilly goes to the seaside
Tilly loved her first trip to the seaside, digging in the sand and running from the waves. It is however very difficult to take photographs whilst holding a very excited puppy!
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Rewind June and July
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Water fun for Tilly
The lovely hot weather can get a bit much when you have a furry black coat, so a garden hose and plastic box are just the job.
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Tilly meets Ruby
So Tilly met our friend’s Flat Coated Retriever Ruby this weekend. It was a timid start, but given Ruby is pretty huge and about six times Tilly’s weight, our little superstar was very brave and quite bold.
After some cautious fancy footwork where Tilly managed to keep something (table, chair, person or washing basket) between her and Ruby at all times, things ended up with the pair laying happily side by side. Tilly even sneaked a quick lick of Ruby’s bone!
More fun to come once Tilly’s second vaccination is completed and she can start tagging along on walks, even if she needs to be carried for some of it.
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Tilly the Cockapoo and Dave the Duck
Tilly arrived a week ago and the last seven days have been crazy. the whole house has been taken over by our new arrival and hard to remember what life was like before. Above all else, she is an absolute joy, but this doesn’t mean it hasn’t been very hard work indeed.
Juggling ‘puppy playtime’ with training, nap times, constant trips to the garden for toilet training, while also trying to continue with normally day to day activities like cooking and eating meals, has been quite challenging.
It has required 4am starts every day, but the week of hard work is definitely paying dividends. We have now advanced to her being quiet all the way through the night, being happy in her play pen for periods during the day without being the centre of attention, and to most ‘toilet activities’ being outside.
So then, to anyone considering getting a dog, and specifically a puppy, it is a lovely thing, but do NOT underestimate the commitment it requires!
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May I look again?
Another quick look at what happened in May 2016
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Meeting Tilly
Our house cannot be complete without an animal, and we have been so sad since we lost our furry blue boy. Knowing that he had only a few months to live, we had decided that we would have a dog not another cat, but I don’t think I’d fully realised just how sad I would feel when he finally went. Even now, I still expect to see his little furry face when I come in….
So to focus on the future, we started our search for our new family member. Not a replacement of course, as that would never be possible, hence why we were decided on a dog, something that had never been possible during the cat’s reign. As a family, we discussed dog breeds and all agreed that a cockapoo seemed like the best fit of personality and size for us.
But where to find one? Clearly the minefield of the internet was not going to help much, especially with so many people seemingly cashing in on the popularly of the cockapoo and many other popular family dogs.
Each time I thought I’d found one, I would get excited, but then came the uneasy feeling in my tummy – was I doing the right thing? Was this breeder genuine?. To be fair, I’m an overly cautious person by nature (my husband says I tend to overthink things) and had to disappoint my husband when I couldn’t bring myself to buy the very cute puppy we went to look at, because I wasn’t comfortable about the conditions he was being brought up in.
Instead we focused on finding a quality breeder, and looked at the Approved Breeders list on Cockapoo Club GB and sent an email to Maison Jolie Cockapoos We were delighted to hear from Eve, giving us the great news that she a had a little black girl available.
We visited yesterday, and both she and Maison Jolie Cockapoos were perfect, everything we had hoped for, and now we can’t wait for her to arrive and complete our family.
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