#my parents bred dalmations before I was born

[anne1066-blog]

5th February 2019

Ok so I had a weekend off.  Sometimes you need one especially if you’re spilling your guts online.

So where were we ?  I was working at Mons and frankly I was strapped for cash.  Then we sold the house finally.  The money was a relief but of course I owed a massive amount of it before it was even in my account.  My uncle helped me buy the house.  My parents had helped me actually live on 2 days a week work while affording the rent of my house and you know, eating.  Until I had worked on the other cheesemaking business in Suffolk, I wasn’t actually earning enough to keep myself going.

Now I was earning a bit from hand to mouth but after selling the house I finally had a nest egg.  And so I continued to work at Mons but knowing it wasn’t a full time job.  Obviously Christmas (the money came through in December) was lucrative enough.  But in January and February it dwindled and I began to think what else I could do.

I had a few weeks away back in Marple to house-sit because my parents were away.  It was a chance to spend a bit of time back home again which is always relaxing and to spend a bit of time with my dog again.  I mentioned before that I hated being away from Percy the dog and yet it had been nearly a year since I’d been with him and properly looking after him.  There was a discipline to walking him twice a day that I missed.  I also missed his company.  Having a dog made a huge difference to my life.  I was lonely and sad when I got him and to be honest since I had been wanting a family since I was 28 and cancelled my wedding, looking after a dog who needs you for food and company and then gives you unconditional love in return, filled a bit of that hole.

Percy is a lovely, enthusiastic labrador dog who I bought in return for hours worked at Holker Dairy when I was making St James cheese.  I had been there for 8 months and as they breed dogs as well as making cheese, I had seen a few different litters born, be absolutely gorgeous and then of course go on to their forever homes as is the way.  Nicola who bred them would be happy to see them go once they were old enough.  The sheer amount of dog poo by that stage made the magic wear off significantly despite how adorable they were.  She made them sociable by having them in the house with her own children individually.  They were partially house trained already as a result and loved children, having spent time with her son and daughter and been cuddled and loved until they went to their ultimate home.

I collected Percy at a little over the usual 10 weeks old.  Nicola had arranged for him to spend time in the house with her children so he could begin house training and be used to children.  I had friends with young kids so I definitely needed a dog who would be used to them.  I had considered a rescue dog like our much loved Ben the wonder dog who we acquired on my gap year before I left for university and who i adored from the word go.  When I took off for 2 months in Paris during said gap year I missed him more than my family! Dogs aren’t for everyone.  Some people find them too needy and attention seeking but I have always loved them and desperately wanted one in the house for as long as I could remember.  I read 101 Dalmations as a child and even had a porcelain pointer dog I called Pongo after one of the lead characters as a result.  Every time I saw I dog, I wanted to meet and stroke it. It was my ideal pet - some girls love horses, some love cats, I was always a dog person. 

My parents had both grown up with dogs.  When I was very little and we first lived with my grandma, she had a corgi called Megan.  Obviously Megan died when I was little and she decided not to get a dog again because she was less confident in how far she could walk.  Not fair on a dog really.  But we had friends who had lovely collies and maybe because of Megan, I was a dog magnet as a child.  I was taught not to just rush in and hug them which obviously was my childhood instinct but to respect their boundaries, let them sniff my hand and accept me and then stroke them tentatively and read how they reacted as to how much I lavished affection on them.

Ben the wonder dog was a prickly rescue dog.  He was exceptionally loving - we took him away with us on what was meant to be a reconnaissance trip because he flung himself at us, throwing himself into our arms and licking our ears.  He then threw up on me in the car.  I forgave him.  He also howled into the night for days.  We had to buy him sedatives in the end just to get him used to the house and to sleeping.  Somehow I slept through it  - despite my hopes, perhaps not a natural mum! My mother and sister were not so lucky.  He was a lovely dog but had his boundaries.  You could hug him only so far and then he made it plain he had had enough.  Not so Percy.  This was a dog that couldn’t get enough of his human companions.  Even now, he barks imperiously when you don’t wake up early enough.  He doesn’t need a walk - he just wants his company again.  When we lived together just the 3 of us, he would sleep on my bed or at the end of my bed.  When I return to Marple which is his home now and for the foreseeable future, the minute I sit in an armchair he asks to get onto my lap, something he hasn’t been the right size for since he was about 6 months old, but then sits looking happy, smug and promptly falls fast asleep.  He’s my doggy hot water bottle in cold weather and I love it.