Katie Jane My Doggy Friend

Well we first came to meet Katie we were on a trip to Birmingham, to visit relatives, it was mentioned that there was a young dog called Fluff, a female cross border collie, who if she was not found a home soon, would be going to the dogs home where if she was not homed, she would be put to sleep.

We went to look at the dog, who was a rather odd looking sort of dog, with the head of an Alsatian, and the body of a collie, she looked very frightened and anxious but at the same time affectionate.

How could we have not taken her, but here was the problem, how to get back home to Manchester with her, because at that time we did not have a car, and had in fact travelled down by train, well we found a lead somewhere, and off we went to the station, where the first surprise was we had to buy her a ticket.

The trip up to Manchester was uneventful, and on the way home we bought a new collar and lead, as well as dishes for water and food, not forgetting the food itself. When we got home, we showed her around the house and got her settled for the night.

We quickly decided that fluff was the wrong name for her and for reasons I can't now remember we changed her name to Katie, the next task was to go and see the vet, which we did quite quickly, he said rather than the young puppy we thought she was, she was actually 18 months old, but in good general health, he did her injections and off we went.

One of the problems we discovered with her, was that she was frightened of men, although she seemed to have no problem with me, but that might have been to do with the walks I took her on, one of the things she never ever came to terms with, was being in the car when the windscreen wipers were on, after a time we realised that this was because she identified the wipers as a stick coming down on her, which would be consistent with her having been beaten in the past.

I found she was a lovely companion, and when I wanted time on my own I used to take around the fields and I would chat to her as my best friend, during these times I taught her to retrieve objects in particular her lead, which she would happily chase them bring back to me, with her ears up, foolishly waiting for me to do it the next time.

One day whilst we were out with her, I threw a stick as I had many other times, but sadly on this occasion she pounced on the stick, but it had landed upright in the soft earth, and because of the speed, it went down her throat, we rushed to her because she was in so much pain and took her straight away to see the vet, fortunately she had not done too much damage and was quickly back to her old self.

As a result we learned never to do that again and instead bought her rubber ring which was bright orange so that we could see it if it was dropped, or lost any time.

One year we took her down to the lodges and I threw her ring a little too far and it went in the water, sadly it could not be found so we had to buy a new one, the following year there was little rain and one day when we went down to the lodges lower and behold there was the ring which we quickly retrieved, cleaned up and continue to use for her pleasure.

She was a lovely dog who was kind affectionate and very loving, she was also bright and intelligent and quick to learn and generally just happy to be in our company, having said that, she did have some strange traits, in that although she was a female dog, on occasion she would attempt to mount the cat, which we could never ever understand.

Sadly over a period of time her health deteriorated and one day she seemed to lose control of her legs so again we took her to the vet, but this time there was nothing could be done, we therefore asked that he put her to sleep so she would not be in pain or distress. She is still missed even now.

Oliver The Cat

I will never forget Oliver, one of the nicest cats I have ever met, who was a real bundle of fun but sadly had a short life



I will start at the beginning, a friend who rescued cats contacted us to say would we take a young male Burmese cat, that needed re homing because the owner had to choose between the cat and her soon to be married partner.

This was because the cat had a nasal condition that meant it frequently sneezed and when this happened the contents of his nose marked anything it hit. The owner had been back to the breeder but they accepted no responsibility for this.

The owner who loved the cat wanted him to go to a good home where he could continue to be spoilt as she always had.

We went and visited and straight away took to him, he was a beautiful brown colour, the owner seemed happy with what we said so sadly for her passed him his basket & all his favourite toys & saw us off with tears in her eyes.

We could not initially decide what to call him because we did not like the name he already had, but quickly found he was constantly eating, so inspiration struck & we called him Oliver “The Boy Who Wanted More”

Because our last cat had disappeared, we were very protective of Ollie as he became known & he was kept in the home, apart from when I took him out for a walk on a lead, now some may say they do not believe this but I have found oriental cats very like dogs, so he used to enjoy these times but we did attract a lot of attention from others.

When out unlike a dog he would insist on climbing onto walls and other objects to check them out. In the home he always liked to be where it was warm & often damaged his paws going on the hotplates, but his favourite spot was on top of the boiler where he would stay for hours.

One day we had been upstairs on a task & we had left some sausages under the grill, when we came down all but 2 had disappeared & we could not work out how or why, we later discovered when he did it again he was scooping them out & Katie our dog (who you will hear of again) was quite happy to eat the evidence before Ollie could get down.

The other interesting expensive habit that Ollie had was to suck woollen garments as a child does a soother, which gave him a lot of pleasure but caused a lot of upset when favourite cardigans & tops where rendered un wearable in his search for a fix.

Sadly we only had Ollie for a few months because one day he managed to get out, we searched the streets in vain, contacting all the rescue agencies, Police & refuse collectors, sadly we eventually received a phone call to say that he had been found run over a short distance away. We went and collected him and buried him in the back garden, he was sadly missed, but eventually replaced by Bonnie & Emma who I will tell you more of another day