Change Lives

Change Lives

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Little Bully's Big Adventure.....

Another SHAK boy who has had a busy time, including being castrated is Bully. A new job means a move to Scotland for Lynn, and she wanted to give one of our longest residents a goodbye break.....

"Last weekend saw me going on my last SHAK adventure as I am about to move to a new job in Scotland and will be having to say goodbye to all of the 'puppies' still at SHAK. Over the last few years I have been trying to complete the 85 miles of the Hadrian's Wall path and after Laser and Murphy (my last companions) failed to negotiate the stiles on my final six miles I was left with one day to complete it.

So this weekend I decided to take Bully one of SHAKs longer term residents with me and do the most spectacular but most difficult six miles of the walk and complete it all before I leave.

 Bully is a loveable Staffie - a cheeky little rogue!  He has been in the kennels for a few years now and Steve thought he deserved a trip out and see what he was like away from the kennels.

I must admit, I went into this weekend with a little bit of trepidation as I thought he would be quite hard work (have I mentioned his occasional lack of manners!) but I couldn't have been proven more wrong.  He was absolutely fantastic in the house, asking out from the first evening, slept overnight in his crate (although he does snore like a tractor) and spent the evening either curled up on my knee or on the armchair with all four paws in the air.

 During the walk, which mainly involved very steep climbs up one side of a crag just to come down a very wet, muddy, slippery other side, he soon learnt to take his time on the way down (after nearly pulling me off
my feet as he leapt off down the first one quite merrily) with the simple command of 'wait' being repeated quietly and on the up sections made do with a few looks over his shoulder which just said 'for God's sake woman, hurry up....'

He obviously loved being in the great outdoors and didn't slow down once although when we first crossed a field he looked a little bit lost at not having a wall or a pavement to follow.  When we got back
to the car he simply curled up in a little ball on the front seat and slept the whole way back to Morpeth.

As I mentioned Bully has definitely been in a house before (asking out etc) but this was even more obvious when after being given 'permission' to go upstairs when we got home he bounded enthusiastically up, I
opened the bathroom door, he took one look at the bath....and sat down on the landing refusing to budge!  After a bit of scrabbling (on both our parts) I eventually manhandled him into the bath where he gave a resigned sigh and stood perfectly still while I cleaned half a ton of mud off him.

Bully really is a lovely, affectionate little dog and for all that I had my reservations he turned out to be one of the best dogs I've had home from the kennels."