Walking The Beat........

Today I want to tell you a little about a friend of mine who, along with her family, does the most wonderful work to help retired and rescued greyhounds and lurchers.

Sue & a pile of hounds!

Many of you will know Suzy Taylor from her blog Suzy's Sanctury or from Facebook. We have known her for nearly as long as we have been blogging and we think that the help that she gives to hounds in need is wonderful.

Some of the hounds who landed on their paws at Sue & Eric's!

Sue and her husband Eric have been involved with Greyhound Gap for over 10 years and throughout that time have fostered and adopted more hounds than I can count ( I can't get past 16 as I only have that many toes....) First Mac, then Alfie Bear, then Ranger, then Gangley, then Mojo, then Ruby, then Elmo, then Orin, then Twizzle, then little Belle with her broken leg,... and so it goes on. Greyhound gap call and Sue answers!

This doesn't look a bad place to stay does it chaps?!

 Over the years as she has become more experienced, GG tend to send her hounds that have either physical or physiological problems meaning they will be long stay fosters, which in turn means that by the time they are deemed fit to rehome it’s too late and they can’t bear to part with them, so her pack just keeps on growing!

Mac gets a comfy sofa to recover on.

 This year she has had two greyhounds arrive; one via GG and one privately from a chap in deep trouble; both have stayed! I think I am right in saying, the pack currently consists of 8 hounds.... You see what I mean, when I call her our Houndie Hero?!

This lot think their Mum is pretty special too!

GG is a small independent charity that takes in and rehomes Greyhounds and Lurchers that find themselves in PTS situations in UK pounds. Most of their hounds are either in holding kennels or foster care; they don't have kennels of their own. If they did, it would make a massive difference to the amount of hounds they could help.

Sometimes Sue's sofa is full to bursting point!

 When one of Sue's hounds, Sandy, sadly passed away from the dreadful Osteosarcoma, her son Marc, a serving Police Officer, decided he wanted to do something in her name to help  the GG kennel fund. It was decided that he and some of his colleagues would attempt the four coast to coast walks of England, Scotland, Ireland & Wales........and so the idea of Walking The Beat began.....

Marc with his beloved Sandy - the inspiration behind it all.

The first two walks in England & Scotland raised £6000 and by the time the final walk is completed next year the boys hope to have raised over £10,000 and will have walked 1000 miles. This year's walk (Wales) begins on 1st September. The boys will begin at “Offa’s Dyke” walking the coast of Wales from South to North. The walk commences on the River Severn at the Sedbury Cliffs (a mile south of Chepstow) and finishing on the North Wales coast at Prestatyn beach. They will pass through no less than eight different counties and cross the English and Welsh border over twenty times.The walk will cover 180 miles over 7.5 days with an average of 24 miles walked a day! Impressive isn't it?!

The other hero's in this story.....!

So.....what I am really doing here is asking if you are able to help out? I appreciate most people don't have that much spare cash these days and there are many worthy causes out there. I hope some of you will want to help the "little guys" who don't get any funding, rely totally on donations but do such fantastic work. So please, anything you can spare, just £1.00 would be deeply, deeply appreciated. 

You can donate to Walkingthebeat 2013 at their JustGiving page by clicking HERE or the link in my sidebar. 

Thank you very much in anticipation of your help.

Just in case you've forgotten how handsome I am.......!

Frosty Friday!

I would like to dedicate today's post to my good friend Lori over at What Remains Now. One of Lori's greyhounds, Casper, is my cousin. Yeah I know, everyone is my cousin. I blame Grandad..... But I digress. Lori has made this very hot week so much better for me. She writes a fantastic blog about painting, crafting, her life and most importantly, her 3 Greyhounds!! You really should visit if you haven't already met her.

A couple of days ago, Lori wrote about making frozen treats for Casper, Freedom & Nikki. One of the ingredients was pumpkin, which immediately caught Mum's eye. (Mum is obsessed with canned  pumpkin, which can be quite hard to come by in the UK) Mum was inspired! We are in the middle of a mini heatwave here in the UK, and while I show no distress in the heat, Mum is keen to keep me cool.

Out of Lori's ingredients, we only had pumpkin (and I don't like peanut butter) so Mum thought she would improvise.........

......and came up with this. This is a very simple frozen treat made by mixing together skimmed milk and pumpkin. You can use soya or rice milk if you are dairy-intolerant. 300ml of milk and 3 table spoons of pumpkin make two small pie tins of mix.

Oooh wwhat is this?!!

Aaagghh! Mumth  meh thung is thuck...!

Well that went down well!

I'm all cool and relaxed now.....

Mum now has another obsession; Lolly making! Here in the UK we don't have Frosty Paws or anything like it, as far as I know, so these home made treats are fantastic......and very cheap!  They went down so well, Mum made some more....

This is the rather exotic, skimmed milk, coconut and melon...

I only have one left, so I am sending Mum off to the kitchen to make more....not that she needs any encouragement.....  Today we are thinking something with apple....

Thank you very much Lori for a great idea! Stay cool and safe everyone. I'm off to see Ganny, so catch you all later

Deccy xx

Nearly Wordless Wednesday 17/7

Ahhh! All you need is the love of a good woman; and I've got that twice over!

Chuck and Duck!

As some of you know, Mum and I have an ambition to be able to let me off lead in non-enclosed spaces. Not near roads, you understand, but not fenced in.

Why she just doesn't get on with it, is beyond me, but she worries I might go nuts and run off. So far I've been really good and trotted along sniffing, but the whole point of letting me off lead is so that I can have a gallop. Bit of a dilemma really.

My first ever off-lead experience. So much wee, so little time...

Recently we were watching a video of a friend of ours who was training her dog for exactly the same reason, and she was using a tennis ball to play "Fetch" with some pretty impressive results. "Pointless with you" said Mum in an unnecessarily accusatory tone. "You just give me one of your looks that says *** off and fetch it yourself" Nevertheless the idea stuck so she dug out an old ball and gave it a go. Incredibly I ran after the ball and brought it back.....well sort of anyway.

Another friend suggested a squeaky ball would be even more enticing and recommended a Kong squeaky American Football. Seconds later and Mum had ordered it and it arrived at the weekend!

As you can see I have mastered some fairly niffty moves, even at this early stage in my career! I'm taking it with me to Ganny's next week where we will have more room to practice....and more distractions, so lets hope I cope with the challenge.

Mum says when we are out on a walk, she needs to feel that she is more interesting to me than all the sights and sounds, so I will return to her when I'm called. Okay Mum we can give it a go, but as much as I love you, you will never compete with Vintage Labrador 2013 wee mail. No offence............

Black and White Sunday 7/7

Need a Guard Dog?!

ADOPT A GREYHOUND! Ahem..........

Nearly Wordless Wednesday 3/6

Does my nose look big in this?

Food Glorious Food!

Hello everyone. I thought I might share a hooman recipe with you today!

A short while ago Mum took me on one of our favourite walks along the Leeds - Liverpool canal. The tow path has been closed for a while, so we hadn't been there for sometime.

This is where Mum likes to pick wild garlic (ramsons) It grows in semi shaded moist conditions often in wooded areas. The season is usually April - mid May, so we were really surprised when we caught the instantly recognisable smell in June! I guess the terrible spring weather has made everything late! 

Yep Mum; that's definitely Wild Garlic!

Being a responsible owner, Mum always has several poo bags (in my case, pedal bin liners...) about her person, so we stopped and picked some. This attracted several odd looks from other walkers as Mum appeared to be bending down in a patch of nettles!

With this year's crop Mum decided to make a simple Wild Garlic sauce for pasta.

The Wild Garlic leaf. Looks quite like Lily of the Valley.

The garlic needs washing thoroughly before use. Many recipes say this isn't necessary....but there are a lot of dogs along that tow path.......just sayin'!

Wild Garlic is a bit like spinach, in that it seems to break down to very little once it is cooked. Mum used about 50 leaves to make a sauce for 2 people!

Once the spinach is washed, blanch for 3 minutes in boiling water and then drain. Place it in a food processor and blitz until you have a smooth bright green sauce. Add a glug of olive oil, 1 tbs of lemon juice, a sprinking of zest and salt to taste. 

Wild Garlic pasta sauce ready to go!

Mum used Fiorelli, but it works well with most pasta. Good for our vegetarian friends too!

While we are on the subject of food, I feel I should share something for all my doggy pals out there. I best just say that if your hooman is with you and if they are eating or not feeling so good, you might want to skip this.....

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My latest find!! Raw green lamb tripe........or possibly it is an alien. For those of you unfamiliar with this delicacy, it is the lining of a lamb's stomach. Beef tripe is more common and usually bleached white for human consumption. I should point out that this was purchased at a butcher's counter for people..... nice! 

So, if ever proof was needed that my Mum adores me, this is it. She said that initially it smelt like a cross between horse poo and rotting eggs......but now that it has been in the fridge for two days (airtight lead lined box required...should it attempt to escape) there is a definite hint of rotting fish there too. Needless to say, I LOVE it!

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Finally I would like to pay tribute to Blueberry, sister of Bunny over at Tales and Tails As many of you will already know, Blue passed away yesterday; yet another victim of the dreadful Osteosarcoma. She didn't suffer for long; having started limping intermittently only two weeks ago. 

Our deepest sympathy goes to Carrie, Bunny and all the family, who have lost their very special girl. Mum had a real soft spot for Blue (and her mum, Lilac before her) and she wasn't the only one. Blueberry will be missed all over the world.....which says a lot about what a special dog she was.

Blueberry. RIP.

Run Fast Run Free Beautiful Blue.