Oopsies!

Well, like I kinda didn’t promise, it hasn’t been daily or weekly since my last posts!

I don’t really have an excuse other than I suffered from a creative – or writer’s – block. I’m quite a creative person and like to do things with flair and an element of uniqueness. Unfortunately for me, the moment I decided to start the blog up again that was zapped from me. Still, “new year, new me” … Just so you know, I cringed mega hard at just typing those words in jest.

I don’t have an awful lot to update you on. Christmas came and went and as usual I found it very crushing and my anxiety was through the roof. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good few days. I ate the most delicious food, and received some lovely gifts (I don’t like receiving presents, I hate it, I wish for the ground to swallow me whole), but I feel I’m in a financial position that doesn’t allow for this amount of time off,or for the price hike in food and I know I am not the only one in that position. I work really hard and put in every extra hour I can, but it’s still not enough. I feel like the bar is set too high at Christmas for the average person working 40hrs a week, who will now have to work extreme over time to pay it off and get the funds for Christmas 2019!

Ah, well that was a cheery start to the year! I suppose it hasn’t been all doom and gloom. I’ve made a real effort to get out to new places with the dogs the past couple of weeks and that is something I am proud of, as it’s very easy to lapse into a routine of dog waking the same routes. I’ve mixed it up quite a bit, most days they’ve been having the usual route on the heath and then where I’ve had the time, they’ve had a 2hr jaunt on the beach. We’ve visited some beautiful spots in the New Forest, along Shell Bay and Old Harry rocks, Badbury Rings and White Sheet.

My new year’s resolution is to do a proper “hike” once a week as well as the daily walks. In the UK we don’t have “hikes” so much, we tend to be ramblers! Where I live especially is pretty flat and chalky ground, so maybe that’s why I don’t class it as a hike, Dorset is generally quite flat, however there are more ridges and peninsulas as you head out west way. I am really looking forward to visiting and exploring all these places on my doorstep though! I’m trying to work out where to head this weekend!

I have got some photos I want to post, but I am a bit short for time! If you have social media, check out my instagram page @_einsteinthehusky, which I update daily and share very brief posts about the day!

Hope you’re keeping well and Happy New Year!! x

Sherman. The dick.

This title is a tad misleading, but it does involve something called Sherman, and it’s a dick. Again, I don’t think that sentence helped much.

If you are a dog walker/owner, do you have that one dog you meet on a walk that you just don’t like? Like, they’re not even a bad dog necessarily and the owner isn’t terrible really, if you really force yourself to think rationally?

For me it’s a fat Beagle. Called Sherman. And he’s a dick.

I don’t know what it is about Sherman but he infuriates me. I don’t think it’s helped much by the fact that his owners walk him on a flexi lead, and allow him into the road and to do what he likes. I also don’t think the fact that Sherman is quite a portly beagle, and his harness is a beige colour and is ill-fitted.

I don’t walk my dogs much on the roads anymore, I tend to take them places where they can run about and act like lunatics away from me and I can pretend I don’t own these demons. However, I still see Sherman frequently, as I’m driving about and he still bugs me. Considering he is walked on a Flexi, Sherman walks very slowly. He isn’t that fat that he can’t walk properly, he just thinks he f*cking owns the place and that is an attitude I can’t get behind, especially for a portly Beagle in a beige harness. I have been walking my dogs behind Sherman and one of his owners before, and it was almost painful. I walk quite quickly, and even more so with Einstein (because to him it’s not worth going anywhere unless it’s 110mph), but here we were stuck in a doggy traffic jam created by Sherman. Einstein is totally disinterested in most dogs, so he wasn’t the issue in this incident. Sherman however, is quite mouthy. The owner was quite happily bumbling along in front, Sherman hanging right back and just looking over his shoulder like “I’m cool, I got this”, which I think was the first thing that annoyed me. I don’t need an overweight, middle-aged beagle thinking it owns me. Sherman then starts to bark at us, and proceeds to lose his shit. Rather than be polite or courteous, his owner looks back over his shoulder and gives the exact same look to me and Einstein and says “come on, Sherman” and then decides to go even slower. I was already stressed that day, and after this I decided to turn around. I had been stuck behind Sherman for 15minutes too long.

Another, more recent incident occurred a couple months ago when I walked the dogs one morning on the field. There was a thick fog and you couldn’t see shit. My dogs are pretty good off lead, and I know they can find me. So here I was in this Silent Hill type scenario, and I hear a faint cry of “Sherman!”. I froze. A rage filled me like no other before. I couldn’t see Sherman, and I felt like I was being surrounded by demons, my dogs coming back to me in a panic. “Sherman! Sherman!” I was scared, I knew he was here somewhere, but where?! All of a sudden, a chubby beagle in a beige harness appeared directly in front of me. My first thought was fuck, my dogs ignored him and I decided if I ignored him, he might go away.

I was wrong. I was plagued by Sherman for what seemed to feel like an eternity. He just kept following me and barking and being rude. I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of his dimwitted owner in this fog, but no such luck. I got near the car park and I saw this shadowy figure, he turned to see me and said “Sherman!”. But guess what? Sherman wasn’t listening, so the owner had to grab and pull him away from us, I had had enough of being barked at to be honest. I don’t know how Einstein felt, but he was looking at me like he really wanted to hurt Sherman and I don’t blame him.

One thing I noticed about Sherman’s owner, he was wearing headphones. How could you possibly think on the foggiest morning ever that is would be a good idea to eliminate yet another one of your senses? How bloody useless are some people?!

And that’s about it really. I just felt like writing/venting about Sherman. It’s not an amusing anecdote, I saw Sherman early and I knew I had to relieve this rage before going to dinner tonight.

*I would like to add that I know my reasons, or lack of reasons, don’t mean Sherman is an actual dick. I just think he’s a dick, even though his owners probably love him … But then I think they’re dicks too.*

It came from beneath the bin …

You may be surprised to hear that this is actually going to be the tale of how Edison came into our life.

As I briefly described in my previous post, we saw him on a Facebook post, which had been shared multiple times across the dog community until we happened upon it.

For some context or background information, there is a very kind-hearted lady based in Romania who has devoted her entire life to saving dogs and cats from the streets in rural Romania. It is a seemingly thankless task for her, but this is the price of a huge heart. Generally in Romania, dogs and cats are not seen in the same light as they are here in the UK, they need to serve a purpose (such as the Livestock Guarding breeds) or they’re pests. People throw poison down for them, they shoot at them and mutilate them. It’s absolutely soul destroying to look into and it breaks your heart.

Our story starts with a public Facebook post shared across various groups, as I already mentioned. I don’t remember what group I saw it, or page or person shared it, but he was there. The lady running this rescue found Edison (then known as Barney) and his brother in a large refuse skip. Their mother was nowhere to be seen and they’d obviously been living off of scraps. However, she had spotted near this skip that poison had been freshly put down, so she needed to find these puppies as soon as possible.

With a little coaxing with fresher food, “Barney” and his brother were captured and taken back to the kennel/compound. Besides the fleas and worms, they were deemed healthy and would be able to fly to a new home when they were vaccinated and the correct age (or thereabouts).

We saw Edison’s picture. He was a black and blonde ball of fluff, with great big ears that sat forward and made a shape like a T. We messaged the lady of the rescue and told her about ourselves, our dogs and our lifestyle. She deemed us suitable to take on this pup and so the wait began. We expected a homecheck from a volunteer, but nothing. Of course there was an element of doubt cast into our heads not being able to see him or visit him and only a few pictures sent when he was seen by their vet. When I said an element of doubt, what I actually meant was “we’ve been scammed. We fell hook, line and sinker”. I was certain this puppy didn’t exist.

You sure as hell better believe I stumbled backwards a bit when the animal transport van pulled up outside my house and a man jumped out with a piece of paper, asked “Your’s is Barney, right?”

“Er, yeah”

He then slid the van door open and there were 2 rows of cages, 3 in each row, which in turn had either 2 big puppies in, or 3 smaller puppies.

As though it were a filing system, he flicked through the cages and rummaged through the puppies and pulled out the biggest, fattest puppy. Barney.

I cried. He was home. He was real. He was also covered in shit and piss from the stress of it all, but he was home.

Edison has grown up into the most quirky and inquisitive dogs I’ve ever met.

He’s quite extraordinary and he’s quite bloody naughty …

I shan’t ramble on anymore, got a date with Vikings, and I’m quite partial to a Viking.

It’s been a while!

Well then, where do I begin?

I am a newbie twice over! This website/blog was started up about 3 years ago, not long after I got my Siberian Husky, Einstein. I wrote a couple of posts and added some photos, but nothing spectacular or in depth. I have since deleted these posts not because I am ashamed or embarrassed by them, but because there was approximately zero personality in them. I really was at a low point in my life, I had no confidence and was just a consistent, trembling bag of nerves. How times have changed, it is amazing to look back sometimes after some life changes, eh?

I kept the blog address because I knew at some point in the future I *would* come back to it, and here I am! You’ll be pleased to know that Einstein is doing very well and is the absolute light of my life. He really has been a (wo)man’s best friend and he has also really flourished and become an exceptional dog.

However, there has been some heartbreak along the way, sadly my beloved bull terrier, Jools, had to be put to sleep on 11th November 2016. It still tears me apart every day that she isn’t with me, but that is part and parcel of being a pet owner. WE all have to cross that bridge one day, and she let me know that she was tired and she wanted to rest.

That said, we still have our senior girl, Misty the Norwegian Elkhound, who I adore very much. I also have a new addition to the family – his name is Edison and he is an 18 month old Romanian Sheepdog! He was found in a rubbish skip in the rural streets of Romania. We stumbled across his picture on a Facebook post, where it stated he was seeking his new forever home in the UK. Well, you can tell the rest. We fell in love and after he had had his vaccinations and was old enough to travel, he came to us. I can’t lie, he’s an absolute nightmare, but certainly keeps me entertained and very busy. We don’t know his exact mix, and it’s fun to guess what he could be. Edison looks very much like a smaller version of a Romanian/Carpathian Shepherd dog, which are ginormous, and certainly explain his personality traits!

And with that out of the way, I want to give a quick brief on what I hope to be posting on here! I aim to publish posts throughout the week, I can’t promise daily, I can’t promise I’ll stick to just one post a week! I do hope to post frequently with general musings and trials and tribulations of being a dog owner and a general mumble and grown about life. I also am hoping I will be able to add images to my posts, as I am constantly taking photos of the dogs – who doesn’t love a good dog picture anyway?!