Holly's First Year

This is the little sweetheart who’s been taking up all of my time these last several months! 

Holly came to us in August last year, at nine weeks of age.  The months since have been occasionally chaotic, very rarely frustrating, frequently funny and always rewarding.  The time I’ve spent buried in dog training, dog behaviour and dog psych books has paid off in spades.  At almost a year old, Holly is a delight.  Full of beans and with a huge personality, she is constantly entertaining and can be playful yet  still gentle.  My 89 year old father adores her, and she him.  She is incredibly gentle and patient with him and loves nothing more than to sit at his side. 

The biggest, and most unexpected bonus, to having Holly join the household is the amount of time we’ve been spending at the beach.  I have long maintained that I have mermaid blood, and Holly was born within earshot of the waves; an afternoon at the beach is the perfect excursion for both of us.  Throughout the winter months there weren’t many weeks where we didn’t pay a visit to the coast.  On one or two occasions these were very fleeting visits, but we got there nonetheless! 

Life around the old homestead has changed significantly too.  From being quite houseproud, I can now often be seen sitting with a cuppa while chaos reigns around me.  My motto these days is “it’s a house where a dog lives”!!  It only takes five minutes to do a quick tidy up, and another five with the vacuum cleaner to restore some order! Holly favours an outside feel to the living room so I am constantly picking up bits of stick, leaves, moss and occasionally muddy grassy clumps where she’s strewn them around.   

The best part of my day now are our walks.  It’s come as quite a surprise how bonding these walks are.  We wander along with me encouraging and praising her while she’s on the lead, calling her and keeping her close-by when she’s off the lead and playing with her when we get to the field.  Despite the mess it makes, and the time it takes to clean her off afterwards; watching her splashing and racing through muddy puddles and getting filthy just reduces me to laughter.  The look of utter joy and delight on her face is impossible to deny! 

The winter months brought their own joys for Holly; Autumn leaves to be chased along, and brought inside endlessly!  For one glorious week in January we had snow.  Proper snow, disruptive snow, drifts of snow, the snow I remember from my childhood.  Holly LOVED it!  I would find her lying outside, flat out on the snow all day, and all night if I’d let her!  She used to love running and jumping through it, catching snowballs and looking to see where they’d disappeared to, but most of all rolling and rolling around in it, making snow dogs!  Another bonus to the winter months were cosy early nights.  Holly and I would often take off for an early night, she curled up asleep at my side, I with my nose buried in a book!

 

At nearly a year old now she is pretty much fully grown, and is a lovely petite little lady.  She has a beautiful fine coat, with white ‘angels wings’ on her shoulders, white pants and mane.  She has a lovely sweet nature, loving and gentle, she is still full of mischief from time to time and has a huge personality.  For all of that, she is incredibly well behaved and loves to please. 

We’ve been on an incredible journey over the last ten months, and I have loved every minute of it.  Life now is very, very different – but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

 

 

Holly my darling, here’s to many, many, many more years of chaos xxx

 

 

 

A Disturbing Development

I’ve just taken a peek at the old homestead to see how preparations for my arrival are coming along and have a very, very disturbing development to report.

 

This is Mum & Dad’s bed.  Note the Sealy Posturepedic pillow top mattress, topped with a feather mattress (I appear to have been adopted by the Princess and the Pea).

This travesty appears to be my bed.  Note the plastic box with a duvet folded up in it.

This will never do.  I intend to make my first goal sleeping on the big bed.  Obviously I need to ask my cousin Ruby for a few tips – she seems to have it all worked out from this picture.

The Visit

What an eventful few weeks I’ve had.  I’m now all of six weeks old and my breeder has started weaning me onto puppy food.  I’m liking this development very much!

I’ve started exploring outside, what an interesting place this seems to be.  My brothers and sisters and I have lots of fun scampering around in the sunshine, although Mum seems to do a disappearing act from time to time, looking for what she calls peace and quiet.

I had some visitors last weekend when my new Mum & Dad came to visit me.  We had just had our lunch and were enjoying a little snooze in the garden when they arrived to see us all.  It was very exciting.  I had lots of cuddles and kisses and got to show off all the new things I’ve been doing.  My brothers and sisters enjoyed the excitement too.  I was quite glad to have a sleep after all of that.

I see things on the home front are improving.  My toy collection has grown since I last looked.  I have lovely new water and food bowls, and a smashing new red collar and leash.  I’m looking forward to debuting that when we go on our walks.

I am quite perturbed to see that Mum has installed a baby gate across the bedroom door.  I was hoping to spend my days lounging on the big bed – it looks very comfortable up there.  Oh well, I’m sure if I practice my pitiful look she’ll crumble and let me have a lie on there.

I only have just over three more weeks left here now before I go to live in my new home.  I’m quite looking forward to seeing my new home and all the exciting things to explore there.

The New Arrival

My name is Holly and I was born a few weeks ago.  This week my new Mum & Dad came down and chose me out of the whole litter to go and live with them.  I’m too young to leave my real Mum yet, so for the next few weeks I’ll still be living here with all my brothers and sisters. 

My new Mum probably hasn’t realised it yet but I chose her, I cleverly clung to her arm so that she would know I wanted to stay with her and my new Dad.  Humans are so gullible like that! 

Clearly, my new Mum & Dad are book parents; just look at all the books they have on puppy care and living with a Golden Retriever.  I’ll teach them all they need to know about looking after me in the first few days!! 

Mum seems to be very taken with this particular book, it even seems to have taken over from her go-to book – Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.  She is taking this very seriously.  Perhaps I should humour her when I join the household so that she doesn’t think she’s wasted her time. 

This seems to be my toy basket.  It’s looking very lean; just a satanic looking teddy bear, a ball and a raggy bone looking thing.  They’ll do to be going on with but I hope that they are going to give me a better selection of toys ....... or look out furniture!! 



This looks like Mum’s best moose-fur slipper – I bet a chew on this will get me some attention.  I must bear that in mind if she seems tardy to respond to me! 

I’m going to have a sleep now because I am only a very little girl.  You’ll be hearing some more from me in the coming weeks as I join my new family and find my feet.