Charlie

Business ideas site Springwise has located this really interesting-looking service that helps you find someone nearby to look after your pet while you’re away.

It looks like the idea is to actually find fellow dog-owners who will look after your canine friend while you’re on holiday. You then return the favour when they go away. It’s a simple idea — so simple that I’m surprised nobody’s thought of it before!

The emphasis seems to be on building up a relationship with the person looking after your dog — so that you know your pet’s in good hands. It sounds a lot cheaper — and potentially more pleasant for the dog — than dog kennels. Of course the other alternative, taking your dog away with you, is also worth looking at, especially for UK holidays, as long as you can find a good dog-friendly cottage to stay in!

Tom

Munsterlander?

Or spaniel/collie cross?

In the latest edition of Holiday Cottages I’ve written about a ‘walking cure’ for Charlie, my dog – you can read the full article in the holiday cottages online magazine, or in a web version on the holiday cottages website.

Charlie, who came to us as a rescue dog three years ago, had begun to behave a little strangely. He’d started to develop obsessions: most notably, a passion for table legs – he’d lick and lick them for hours on end, ignoring everyone and everything. It was very weird behaviour!

“Oh, he must have collie in him” people would say. “They’re obsessive.” We wondered if he did. In the piece, I describe him as a “cheerful bouncy mix of spaniel, collie and possibly boxer” but some people tell me that he’s actually a Munsterlander.

Anyway, as you might have read, we took him on a cottage holiday (Wringworthy Cottages, at Morval, near Looe in south east Cornwall) where we did lots of walking along the coast path and gave him plenty of TLC, hoping that we’d manage to get him back to the well-balanced and intelligent dog he’d once been. And it worked. By the end of the holiday, he was calm and playful and pretty much back to his old self.

Owners are more relaxed and their dogs benefit from the extra time and attention they get on a holiday in the countryside. And so I’d definitely recommend that you get away with your dog – mad or not – as often as you can, even if it’s just for a few days.

Now I’ve brought the episode of Charlie’s odd behaviour into the open, I wonder if anyone out there has any theories about: a) why he went a bit loopy and: b) whether he’s a munsterlander or a collie cross (with perhaps a bit of boxer thrown in).