We wanted another dog, I’d given up work as all I could get was in London and travelling there every day was too much. We’d also recently taken over the lease of a cottage with half an acre of land and I was creating a garden from a field.

My wife, bless her, decided I needed a dog, we had owned a springer when we were first married and he was wonderful, we had another who died whilst in someone else’s care shortly after the first one. She contacted Caessr and a lady came to see us, I answered the door and spoke to the dog she had with her first, she went round our garden, came in and chatted over a cuppa, then left.

3 days later I had been out working for the National Trust and walked in to “We’ve been accepted and there’s this dog on their webpage and we’re going to Stoke on Saturday to see him” I looked at the picture and wasn’t impressed! But she (who will be obeyed) had spoken.

We drove from Cambridgeshire to a kennels outside Stoke, don’t ask me where, I’d never find it again! Into reception and spoke to the man I became to know as “John”, he went off and came back, sorry was dragged back, by a black & white scraggy dog which was chewing his way through a tennis ball! We took him for a walk along a very busy “lane” and towards a field with some horses. I dared not let him go and eventually we returned to the office. John was still busy, I handed over the cash in my wallet with a promise of more to follow and loaded this bundle of life into my car. I did not own an estate but a Car with an adaptable rear end so we could treat it as an estate even though it was a high spec saloon.

In the car he was well behaved, we later found out that he was an ex-police explosives sniffer dog , who was obsessed with tennis balls and had been sacked by the police for too many “false finds”. Well it gets a bit expensive when you call out the bomb squad because he wants to play with his tennis ball!

We had to re-equip ourselves with all the necessities for keeping a dog, including a lead, collar & tennis balls!

So began many happy years with the most faithful, adorable and handsome Dog I’ve had the pleasure to care for.

We worked together building a garden, well I threw balls and he dug the odd hole to hide them!

He rapidly became “My Dog” although he loved his mum to bits.

On his first night in our house because we live slightly isolated, I would not shut him in the kitchen, so by degrees he made his way upstairs and eventually had his own shaped pillow both sides of the bed with his own mattress my side. He never tried to climb on the bed, in fact if he was put on it he would jump off!
He went everywhere with us, basically if you wanted to see us he came along and after creating mayhem settled down just before time to go home.

Caessr asked us if we would ‘vet’ people in our area who wanted to adopt, why not? We were asked to visit a fairly new good sized house, beautifully furnished and decorated. It was summer and all the internal doors were open, he went through the whole house like a dose of salts every room and eventually he went into the garden and brought in a plant pot, yes lovely beige (I think) carpet and there’s our dog, soil on his feet trying to chew on one of the husband’s embryo Bonsai plants!

Apparently they did go on to foster one of Caessr’s dogs! Why? God only knows!

After many years of running on beaches, digging sand and getting everything out of life, he passed away last night. You know I feel sorry for the Almighty, he really doesn’t know what’s going to hit him! The most gorgeous, lovable, independent minded, dog he will ever meet.

John and Judy