Honley Show & The Great British Greyhound Walk

Hello everyone; remember me?! Probably not after all this time!!

I just thought I'd pop along to  show you some pictures of me "helping out" (Mum says I mean sleeping) at the West Yorkshire Retired Greyhound Trust stall at the Honley Show last weekend.

This is Romi

.....and this is his sister Sage.

Romi & Sage's Mum, Debbie runs West Yorks RGT. Romi is one of my good friends. I like him because he is dead laid back and more importantly, smaller than me!!

There were  a few of us houndies there helping to promote greyhounds as pets. We also managed to raise £164.00....which I'm sure had everything to do with the hounds and nothing to do with the human helpers at all....!

There were lots of interesting thing to see......

That's a funny looking Greyhound Mum....and it's coat needs a wash......

Time for some light refreshment after a busy day.....

While I'm here, I also wanted to tell you about The Great British Greyhound Walk 2014. The walk takes place next Sunday 22nd June at over 80 locations across Britain. 

The Great British Greyhound Walk is an annual dog-walking event that brings together greyhounds, lurchers, other sighthounds and their owners, to raise awareness and show members of the public just what wonderful pets greyhounds make. Many of the walks are also happy to accept other breeds that are part of a Greyhound's family. 

If you'd be interested in joining in, there is a list of the walks on the website, and this year for the first time ever, the GBGW is going global! As well as across Britain, there are walks in Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, ROI, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and several US states, so do please check out the website and come and join in!

This year's Ambassador is my good mate Jack "JT" Alford, who lives with his Mums in London. 

Jack and I recently spent a few days together in Norfolk......just doing what boys do!

Jack's official Ambassadorial portrait! 

And finally......in case you haven't had enough reminders of what I look like......

Love, Deccy xx

Merry Christmas to all my friends!

Hello everyone; it sure has been a while hasn't it?!

I just wanted you all to know that I haven't forgotten any of you and I'm hoping I might be able to drop by a little more often in 2014.

In the meantime KC & I, along with our good friends Beckett, Veil & Maddy from over at Home Is Where The Hounds Are  have put together a video to wish you all a very happy Christmas, a wonderful holidays and a peaceful new year.

With love,

Deccy, KC, Mum & Other Mum

xxxx

Norfolk 2013

As some of you will know, my Mums and I have recently been to Norfolk for a holiday. It's not a place any of us knew very well, but we were delighted to discover that not only did we love it, but a fair few of our friends can be found there too!

I thought you might be interested in seeing what I got up to (apart from sleeping) so here goes.....

We stayed in a beautiful little village called Old Hunstanton. 

Rather predictably, we wasted remarkably little time locating the local pub / hotel. It is a place we got to know well over the following week....

It was lovely to meet up with Sue & Polly from Graceful Greyhounds

When you are on holiday, it's important not to rush things.....and luxuriate in the fact that KC isn't hogging the bed.....

Surprise, surprise, here I am back at the pub again enjoying a cheese bone whilst me Mums chat with Aunty Hilary from Terrier Fun. (Really she just wanted to admire me, and took this rather good picture)

One of the things that North Norfolk is really famous for is crabs. I was very excited to here this, as I have my very own crab line, which had never been put to use, so I demanded that Mums took me to some good crabbing spots....

I shall sit here and supervise, so come on get on with it...I want to see crabs.....

Hmmm. They won't make much of a sandwich.....

Bigger, Bigger!

Better, but perhaps we should leave it to the professionals!

So we bought crab sandwiches from this little mobile stall on the quay at Blakeney. Mums say to tell you, that if you are ever in the area, try one; they are the best crab sandwiches they have ever had! (I quite liked them too!)

We were just planning on leaving Blakeney, when we bumped into our friends from near home, Debbie, her daughter Lisa and their hounds Sage, Romi and Tye. We knew they were on holiday at the same time as us, but it was a lovely surprise to bump into them!

After all that excitement, I thought I deserved an ice cream.........

Blimey, that's a  bit random Mum! Anyway, Norfolk is also famous for windmills, so I she thought you might like to see one. (I thought that was Holland.....oh well)

We really did have a fabulous time. You can't go wrong when the local pub has a real fire and lets hounds inside!

Before we left, Mums stopped at a little fish shack and spent a king's ransom quite a lot of money on fishy type things. Freshly caught and out of this world!

Well goodbye Norfolk, we shall miss you very much. It's definitely somewhere we will return to.

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Many of you will know our good friend Ellen and her cats Guido & Target from over at Katz and Other Tales Ellen is also a journalist writing for The Malaysian Star and recently interviewed me about how I came to be adopt and train my Mums. (Well she interviewed Mum, but I told her what to say....)

See I am famous! If you'd like to read the full interview, you can here:

http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Viewpoints/Katz-tales-Dog-Talk/Profile/Articles/2013/10/19/A-furry-feel-good-story.aspx

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Our very good friend Pip passed away on Saturday. He was quite possibly the most loved dog in Blogville and will be very sadly missed. Run Fast Run Free little fella. 

Just to say thank you!

My Mums and I are just back from a really great holiday in Norfolk. We'd never been before, but it was lovely and we are already looking for a cottage to book for next year! I'll show you some pictures  another time, but for now I just wanted to say thanks for the presents to a couple of really special friends we met up with......

Do you recognise my pal?! It's Polly from Graceful Greyhounds! We met with her and her Mum Sue for a walk along the promenade at Hunstanton.

Aunty Sue gave Other Mum some chocolates for her birthday and Polly gave me some Bonios. I gave Polly some of my homemade apple & cheese buttons!

Cor! Thanks very much Polly!

And then we met up with another friend! Hilary from Terrier Fun met up with us along with her cousin Bryony. Unfortunately she wasn't able to bring any of the gang, but we had a lovely natter in glorious sunshine! 

Winnie, Taffy, Monty and Molly sent me some cheese bones!

Thank you everyone; they were delicious!

And if that wasn't enough, when we got home there was a parcel for me.......from Denmark! Well that can mean only one thing; my personal dresser MeggieMoo had been at it again! Other Mum had given Sue lots of crafting stuff she no longer wanted, and knowing how much I love MeggieMoo collars, Sue had been in touch to see what could be organised. The result was that between them Sue & Moo sent me this beauty....

Now if this isn't swanky, I don't know what is.... Thank you very much Sue & MeggieMoo!

Black & White Sunday 22/9

Oh my word.............BUNNIES!

We're taking part in the Black and White Sunday blog hop kindly hosted by My Life In Blog Years, and Dachshund Nola.

A slight Misdemeanor.....

Last week, I was relaxing in the garden helping Mum out.

Mum, You've missed a bit.....zzzzzzzzz

I was disturbed from my sleeping vigilant supervising by Mum going onto the driveway and heading towards my car. Now, I don't get up for much, but a car ride is something else. So I got up and followed Mum. She lets me do this, as although it gives me access to the road, I have never in two years ventured to the pavement outside. As it turned out, Mum was just getting her specs from the car, but then something spooked me. I put my ears down, shot up the drive, onto the cul-de-sac and headed for the road. By the time Mum got there I was nowhere in sight. 

You can imagine she was pretty panicky by now, so she rushed back to the house, grabbed her car keys and set about finding me. Just after she turned onto the road, she spotted our lovely postman, who is a big admirer of mine dragging walking me back home by my tag collar. (Mum says thank goodness she never takes that off) Apparently he'd been driving down the main road in his van and had spotted me the other side disappearing into a big estate. Mum says (a) it is a miracle that I wasn't killed crossing the road and (b) if I'd gone into the estate she would never have found me. 

But now I am safely home because of Richard, the lovely postman. Boy, am I glad I made friends with him!

Of course Mum was pleased and as mad as hell all at once, but she managed not to shout at me. Nevertheless I was grounded and put on sentry duty for a while:

Aww come on Mum. I'm sorry, really I am. What have I got to do to make it all okay? I promise I won't do it again (as long as you don't let me onto the driveway...) 

Look I've bought Richard some chocolates to thank him. Now will you forgive me?

So Mum says after that little escapade, it may be that my off lead moments will be severely limited. That little thing called trust seems to have disappeared..... From now on, it may be just  Ganny's garden and the tennis courts. Or if you know anyone with a field to hire, just shout.......!

Me having a zoom at the tennis courts.

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.......!