Dog and Bone Club

07/08/2024

Hello everyone! We’re going to be handing over the reigns to our trusty team while we take a week off work. Thanks to team D&BC in advance! 🧡🧡 You are all amazing.

We’ve all been driving (sailing) down Woodseats High Street like that scene out of the Titanic, good gosh don’t the school holidays clear up the roads! It’s been wonderful! Although I’ve been listening to the Breakfast Club soundtrack instead of Celine Dion. So Don’t You Forget About Me (us) while we’re away (the crowd groans!). 😄

We do have a really exciting announcement to make when we get back so hold onto your hats for that one 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Have a fantastic week, be nice to each other. If anyone decides to spurt some casual fascism to any of us, we don’t want to hear it and I’ll let you know that half my family came to the UK as refugees because of fascism.

18/07/2024

I have spent the week theorising that humanity began its co-existing relationship with our canine companions after we realised that houses are horrible, quiet and possibly haunted without them. I do wonder if the plot would change in a haunting situation if the human presumed everything was because of the dog.
Poltergeist swinging your nans special cutlery around the room? Lurcher having a mad minute. Tapping footsteps? Your dog needs the toilet. Scratching noise on the wall? Someone called Alan in the 1970s bought a DIY book and decided to use a loaf of bread to insulate a wall, the damp weather has reignited the smell and your dog is overjoyed that you’ve left some enrichment for them.
Dragging noise outside? You live at the top of the hill and once again the winds knocked your bin over, much to the joy of your dog who’s partying with the contents across your garden.
Blood pouring down the walls? Your dog has had enough of its slow feeder and thrown it across the room.
Bruce Willis sat in your front room? Well my dogs are cool, I can totally see why he’s hanging out with them.
So every time your dogs mega excited to splash around in a disgusting muddy stinky puddle, just think, if they weren’t around, your house would be haunted!

15/07/2024

😴 Final dates for Ann’s at home dog sitting service for 2024.✨

🐶 This is available for those of you in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire or West Yorkshire.

🐶 Ann exclusively dog sits in your home.

🐶 Ann is fully insured and trained, Ann has many years of experience, she is clean, tidy, calm and relaxed.

🐶We use kind, relationship based methods.

🐶 Dog sitting is in our opinion the easiest way to provide a service where there are not as many changes for your dog. Your dog stays in their own nice quiet house with all its home comforts, routine and smells.

🐶 If your dog likes big adventures, Ann also loves lovely big adventures too! But if your dog doesn’t, Ann is equally happy to share a sofa with your furry pal. Disabilities and reactivity can be catered for.

🐶We treat the dogs in our care like our own, this means fun enrichment, sniffy adventures, kind methods and love, lots of love!

🧡 To book in please feel to message us here, or drop us a WhatsApp on 07895549740 🧡

10/07/2024

I can’t believe Rio is all grown up and it’s time to welcome a new puppy! Big hello to Mabel the cutest new kid in town. Craig’s been doing some puppy bingo with her and a little fun balancing games, she’s going to be an absolutely smashing character 🧡

You know how there’s all these types of intelligence that you can possess, well the sense of direction intelligence really skipped me, thank goodness for OS maps. Anyway I should really not be taken in by signposts, SCC play a bit hard and fast with their green space names, just like how both Meersbrook and Holinsend are in fact imo not parks at all but large patches of grass, the “wood” that I entered yesterday was in actual fact a rewilded cliff edge of an old quarry. Well we were gingerly gloating at the top before it occurred to us that we had to get back down said cliff. I’m not sure at what point the paths turn into a labyrinth, not the cool kind with Bowie singing about a Magic Dance but we really had to embody our inner slalom skier to snaked back down them. Extra bonus we successfully didn’t have to climb through someone’s garden. Do you think if dogs had freedom of choice to do so some would go skiing? I did see a very content dachshund on a paddle board at the weekend.
Anyway, happy hump day everyone. Dawn is also covering Diesel from Paws 4 all seasons, dog walking and pet care., hope you’re having a grand holiday Marie!

02/07/2024

Ok so firstly can you please send us or tag us in your pictures of your dogs at the polling stations or doing anything vaguely political on Thursday pleaaase 🤩 we don’t want to miss out on the pics!

Other news, we’re having a really successful week! Kirk has joined the big boys with Rachel! George smashed his paired walk with Craig and made friends with Bonnie! Baloo has now made 3 friends! Murphy has passed his recall tests with Dawn and celebrated by finding a ball! EDDIE HAD HIS FIRST GRANDCHILD! Congratulations to all! Joy all round.

A big part of what we do is go at the dog’s pace not the humans expectation pace. Some dogs take longer than others to get into a group, some dogs may never make it to a group and that’s absolutely fine too. For some dogs a group is better than being solo and for some dogs starting with solos is best. The things is, just like us each dog is individual and that’s why they all get treated like individuals 🙂‍↕️

28/06/2024

So my new favourite thing to do with dogs that live on roads that were never designed for cars is the game, ‘find the car’ to which we, like all great detectives try and find the car which sometimes I have also lost. I don’t tell the dog that part.. Seemingly not having a bright yellow van anymore makes my life slightly more difficult.

Anyway I was watching Gary Dash run up and down his road trying to locate our chariot of dreams and I thought, wow, he really looks like a dolphin when he runs. I don’t normally like dolphins but I do love Gary so I’ll take this hybrid dogphin. How could someone that loves animals not love dolphins you ask? I don’t like the notion of bullies, I don’t like bullies no matter what form they’re in and as far as I’m aware dolphins are bullies. I also think they get too much press and there are other more interesting creatures in the sea.
I also don’t like turkeys while I’m here but that’s for other reasons (mainly a thousand family stories of my grandad’s turkeys attacking everyone but then, giving them the benefit of doubt apparently they’re very useful in keeping snake populations down in areas where they have very little predators and I am all for natural ecosystems).
Anyway back to dolphins, there’s an entire study on the neoliberalization opinion of them which I didn’t make it to the end of so if anyone would like to summarise it for me then please feel free, although I’m not so sure I’m interested come to think of it. This aside, Gary is not a bully and therefore a brilliant example of a nice dogphin.
Have a lovely weekend everyone, I will not be accepting 90s dolphin necklaces as presents, thank you in advance.

25/06/2024

In really sad news I’m afraid to say that the beautiful Pip crossed the rainbow bridge at the end of last week. This is especially hard to write as Pip’s senior years were so entangled with our own boys.

Pip was the sweetest, softest, gentlest greyhound. She was goofy and adventurous. Her favourite thing was curling up with the boys in a big ball of noodles in the sun.

She really showed what a wonderful life a greyhound could lead despite such a rocky start to life.
Pip was always a follower, there were many times where she would find herself trundling along aimlessly with one of the labs straight into a bog or a river, looking at us confused why she was totally covered in mud.
I have such a vivid memory of when we went to the beach, the whole crew started running at full speed and we thought, heck! What’s going on! We found them all rolling around on a dead seal in absolute joy, windows were fully open on the way home, the crew all feeling very smug with themselves, Pip laid out in Greyhound paradise like she had conquered the world.
She was also a wonderful big sister to her two mini humans, always so patient with them, half an eye on their delicious floor treaties 😀
Pip loved her walks right to the end, her favourite place was the ‘cow field’, she would bound across it and lay in the shade in her favourite spot surrounded by nature. She was also one of our highly regarded nanny dogs, she welcomed many a new nervous dog into the group showing them that life wasn’t scary and that there were plenty of things to enjoy. Our own little Pablo was welcomed with open arms by her when we first rehomed him and she would welcome him snuggling into her, her head laid over Bob’s body like a pillow.
Pip will be greatly missed by everyone at Dog and Bone Club, Ann in particular had a large soft spot for her and who could blame her.

Run free Pip, you’ll have plenty of toast and beetroot baby food to snack on up there with you other friends 🧡 we will truly miss you forever. 🧡🧡🧡

21/06/2024

🪻🌳🫶📞Quick update on our availability🧡🍰🥦🌻

🐢Solo 1:1 walks - WAITING LIST ONLY🐢
🐛Paired walks - WAITING LIST ONLY UNLESS COMPLETELY FLEXIBLE ON TIMES AND DAYS🐛
🦋Small groups - WAITING LIST ONLY UNLESS COMPLETELY FLEXIBLE ON TIMES AND DAYS 🦋
🦧Dog sitting - EXTREMELY LIMITED AVAILABILITY - Ann will NOT be taking on any new dog sitting clients from May 2025 🦧
🎋We may be offering some fun dog learning but this is TBC🎋

Thaaaaaanks

14/06/2024

Happy Friday everyone! Obviously had the have the renamed Wizz-la crew as the cover, what a smashing photo from Craig! Craig has certainly been putting his athletic skills to the test after hurtling himself out of a secure field with Joey and Willow after a giant over stimulated Tibetan Mastiff was let loose in it like kid on e additives left to their own devices at Hamleys. If you don’t know Willow she’s very nervous and can easily go into flight/freeze mode so well done Craig for keeping everyone’s nervous systems in rest and digest!
Rachel has been building up her groups slowly over the last few months and has done amazingly at working out the best combos. Grouping dogs together is like creating a fine wine, you have to get the combo right, not that I drink wine anymore but you catch my drift, we want Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Grand Cru 1945 not Londis Lambrusco 😀 🍷

So in learning news, I’ve just completed a 6 week training course in Autism with the aims that I can make both our workplace and services for customers as inclusive and accessible as possible. If you do think there is anything that you’d like us to offer or make more adaptable for individuals please let us know by dropping us a message, I’d absolutely love to hear suggestions for you.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone 🍷

07/06/2024

04/06/2024

You know you have those days where you have imposter syndrome and doubt everything? For me it normally comes when I’m reading a study and the words start blurring together, or when I try and read this textbook on the Thyroid where I can’t get past the 10th page.

Well I was turning around my mindset and had a good think about what my special super talent is, 🙂‍↕️ oh yes, I think a lot of dog professionals can do this (let’s NOT start a competition 😂😂) and don’t read on if your squeamish.. so here it is, if a dog is on branded food I can tell what it is by their 💩

I do have questions and comments mind. I could google this but I can’t be bothered , I’d quite like to hear your ✨ wrong✨ answers 😂.
Why does Nestle owned foods like Tails / Bakers / Lily’s Kitchen’s p**p smell like second hand red bull? A long long long time ago I use to work at Academy and I can tell you the room would smell like a Nestle dog p**p after Propaganda, a hot room and a thousand students drinking jagerbombs was not the one.
And what is that weird lingering smell that comes off Inspired Pet Nutrition’s food (Wagg / Harringtons)? I can’t put my finger on it but it’s odd.

Also, does it not blow your mind that Mars is the ‘leading’ pet food manufacturer, do you remember that documentary when they tried to make themselves look like a wonderful company but in reality they just showed that they test on animals and their dog food is lumps of some kind of brown goo much like those videos you use to see of chicken nuggets being made but less chicken and more goo.
Also this one is annoying me, what did Butternut change in their formula when they started TV advertising?!
Finally, my fact here, most of these ‘bespoke’ small batch artisanal kibbles come from the same factory, I don’t even need to look at the back of the packet to tell you that 🤣💩.

Anyway, I’m absolutely not knocking anyone feeding to what they can afford, I am 110% not here for that, if your skint try to add some fresh and fermented elements if you can. This is simply a reflection that one of the talents of a pro dog professional, we really know our 💩💩💩💩💩

03/06/2024

Here’s our yearly reminder that we’re a safe welcoming space all year round and not just for the month of June 🥰🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🖤🩶🤍🤎🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

20/05/2024

Can highly recommend this course for all you pet parents, it’s a huge amount of video content for the price. The BHARCS way is truly ethical and kind 💚

It’s around £113 for the pet parent path ☺️

We are back with a limited time offer for our foundation course, the Canine Essential 101. Use SUMMERTIME40 at check out and get flat 40% off on the course. Offer valid till 23 May 2024 and on a first come first serve basis!

If you have been looking to sign up or know more about the BHARCS way, this is your chance!

Log onto courses.bharcs.com and get started ✨

15/05/2024

Well I can tell you for a fact the dogs on our books were pretending to be eating small plates with a non-alcoholic aperol whilst sunning themselves on a terracotta terrace covered in grape vines last week.
I’ve had a few adjustments to my vehicle in prep for warmer weather so that means a larger airy space and a huuuuuuuge Tuffies bed. If you know, you know. Now there’s plenty of options to have solo space in there with all the clipboard human requirements, however I can tell you that our three Iggy’s LOVE snuggling up together in it. Smoosh 🥰🥰
The threat of rain today meant they were spear heading a plot to take over and drive us all to the French Riviera so we can all people watch in the sun which did sound like a lovely idea. I did unfortunately have to remind them that non of them owned a passport and I did have to get back to my own dogs which they were very disappointed about but then I did hear a second wave of muttering about the Isles of Scilly and how if one operates the pedals, one could work the steering wheel and the final one could hold me up for petrol money so they wouldn’t need me at all which I did have a laugh at and explained that our insurance has just doubled in price for no reason so there’s no room for luxuries right now. They’ll have to settle for Dronfield 😄

03/05/2024

Did your dogs enjoy their polling station experience yesterday? Mine didn’t come with us as ours is in a busy dog park but it did cast my brain back to when I was a small child (during general elections) Thorntons would make jelly lollipops of the PM candidates’ heads. Now I wasn’t allowed sugar not gelatine (although I should imagine it was veggie) as a kid but on that one occasion I remember being totally confused why adults were gleefully laughing at me tear a politicians head in half. So now I get it and I think I’ll make some doggie politician biscuits when the time comes and like the generation before me, gleefully watch as they get eaten. Petty? Not sure.

Talking about flavoursome subjects I have now forgiven Spotify for their disastrous DJ experience now audiobooks have become available so we have all celebrated by listening to ‘Invisible Women’ over the past two weeks, I think ‘s dogs might have been doing the same 😁. I’m very certain all the dogs have all taken in all the information, at least more than some of these internet ‘celebrities’ (loose use of the word there). I can conclude they all preferred the professional audiobook over me reading it out loud to them during my lunch break. I do have a suggestion for next weeks book however if you’d like to throw any recommendations of books you think your dog should listen to please throw them at me 😎
We are particularly interested in how the patriarchy has poisoned the dog world. (Thank you BHARCS ❤️) Too much for a Friday? No I think not. Have a lovely bank holiday!

29/04/2024

I’m so sorry to say that lovely Peggy the Sproker suddenly passed last week, our thoughts are with her family 💛 Ann and Craig both wrote a lovely piece in her memory.

Ann - For Peggy.

RIP Peggy, what a lovely dog to have known and walked.
She was a joy to take out and was always my go-to dog to walk with new or nervous dogs; her even temperament, excellent manners, and sensitivity put other dogs at ease.
Out and about, she was forever busy, ranging widely but always returning, usually wet!
I have really fond memories of walking Peggy, and never, ever managed to take a photo of her without slobber wrapped round her chops! ❤️

Craig - For Peggy

Peggy was one of the first dogs I started walking when I joined Dog & Bone Club. When I met her she was a happy smiley bundle of positive energy. Peggy was fab with every dog I introduced her to & loved to lead them off exploring & would come back with a big smile & slobber all over her face.
She loved a splash in the water & was an excellent swimmer. The only difficult parts of walking her were trying to take a photo that wasn’t a blur as she whizzed by catching treats mid air & drying her off at the end of her walks. But the hardest part was finding out that her remaining walks would be over the rainbow bridge.

26/04/2024

💚🐶🌷😎Team Dog and Bone Club💚🐶🌷😎
Thanks to the lovely humans (and Casper and Pabs) for gathering to talk and learn more about dogs yesterday! 🐶🌷🌷

L to R Eddie, Lindsey, Rachel, Dawn, Zara, Ann, Craig.

17/04/2024

I’ve said this a few times out loud this month but the more I’ve mulled over it the more I’m decided, if I was a billionaire with no morals (although I do suppose there’s no reason to write the second half of that sentence), I would clone my precious George like Dolly the Sheep into lots of different animals and spend the rest of my days tending to all my many George’s. My family photo would be two humans and then a sea of George’s just like the cover of Being John Malcovitch.

Anyway, yesterday I had 3 Iggy’s in the group which is a new Iggy record and I do believe Gary looked, just like I would, like a caretaker of George manor, however in this instance, a caretaker of a gaggle of Italian Greyhounds. Interestingly like in all great breed meet-ups that I get excited for (aside from the whippets who loose all composure at the sight of another noodle), there is always one long standing party member a little disgusted by the entire affair. Moley started his walk with what would only compare to a snooty but highly regarded human gossiping behind someone’s back “have you seeeeeen how childish they both are?” he whispered to Gary. But after a short while he had decided that they were actually quite good fun and had a lovely frolic whilst going HEHEHEHEHE around the grass. Composure was of course regained back in the car where humans could see him but I could see out the corner of my eye a friendship bracelet adorning his little leg 😉

15/04/2024

I had a moment last week when I finally thought I got life quotes. I was listening to the radio and a person was talking about her reflections of bringing up her child and how difficult it was, “I spent so long thinking if they could that I forgot to think about wether they should”.
Wonderful quote I thought, so cross transferable to dogs! I had a ponder and almost shared it with a friend but then I googled it and the person had nabbed it from Jurassic Park 😂
So now I’m thinking about my fab Jurassic Park primary school lunchbox that was lost to the great ant breakout of 1993. This wasn’t a nationwide scare, my first primary school kept our lunchboxes outside.. Is this normal practice? I’m surprised there wasn’t a great big Labrador lunchbox outbreak never mind the ants, although I’m not sure even a Labrador would have wanted my hot fizzy hummus sandwiches. Maybe a Dalmatian though 🤔
Anyway, here’s the big question, should I be getting my dog quotes from 90’s media? Is this the key I’ve been missing?

08/04/2024

Dead chuffed with new boy Neil, we’re only a couple of weeks into him joining us and he’s already learning to communicate, listen and be aware of his own boundaries with his new friends. We have been matching him with some slow paced adult dogs so he can learn from them and today he got to meet Dotty who he had a lovely play with. Dotty did an excellent job of showing him the right time to pause, go back to happily sniffing and exploring, well done Dots, she’s making a great nanny dog.

Also really chuffed with Bert Boston, he’s joined the big boys recently and has done so well! Lots of pottering and sniffing just like nature ordered 😀 it’s been super nice watching him grow with confidence and make different types of friends although I’m sure Reggie will miss him in the afternoon!

I met up with Rachel today and did some work on Kirk settling in the car and it was lovely seeing him out making his own decisions about enjoying his environment rather than being focused on other dogs 👌
I think Rachel will really enjoy her time with him.

Final shoutout to adolescent Des, Craig has been really careful with the structure of his walks with him and his owner has really taken on board helping him drain his cup, he’s doing so well! It’s always lovely hearing great feedback from the team about the doggies.

It’s not always the easiest helping dogs slow down after they’ve been to large scale doggie daycares like a couple of the dogs I’ve mentioned above have been to, it can be hard for dogs to go from mixing with dogs in such a stressful environment and then be expected to not have the same energy on walks but it’s always so so rewarding watching them relax, make great decisions and build their confidence. 🙌

03/04/2024

I wanted to dedicate this post to all the amazing owners that truly try to listen to their dogs, the ones that ask questions, the ones that want to learn more, the ones that go at their dog’s pace, the ones that are aware of their dog’s spoons, the ones that listen to their body language and calming signals and react to them appropriately, the ones that don’t expect their dogs to be fine with everything and help them feel safe because they understand that, the ones that try and give consistently clear boundaries and respect to their dogs, the ones that realise that their emotions effects their dogs, the ones that modernise their methods along with the progression of science, the ones that let their dogs sleep in a nice quiet space away from chaos, the ones that constantly try their best and make changes if they got it wrong.
Why am I waffling on about this? I’ve been avoiding doggie social media for quite some time, just dipping in here and there to post. When reels started it opened up a Pandora’s box of videos that for dog professionals are incredibly hard to watch. Unfortunately the more you know about dogs the harder emotionally this job can get and we feel frustrated sometimes. Do you know what though? I’ve had some amazing conversations with some amazing owners over the past couple of weeks about their dogs that’s made me feel so positive. We also took on a few new ‘work in progress’ dogs recently and I really was able to step back and feel overjoyed that some of our previous ‘work in progress’ dogs are now the calm sturdy dogs that our newbies are looking up to. Why? Because they have amazing owners that have made changes for them in order for them to thrive. Anyway, that’s probably a bit overly emosh for a week with a BH in it. I’ll go back to spouting nonsense next week, I hope you like our cute live life loving on sofas ❤️

28/03/2024

Big huge congratulations to Rachel, she’s passed her final dog training assessment and is now fully qualified! Well done, it was a lot of hours and work! She’s going to be doing puppy classes in Nottingham under her own business called Hot Diggity Dogs which is awesome and we are going to sit down next week to work out what services will work for Dog and Bone Club. She will of course continue to walk her dogs and she does have some spaces for group dogs at the moment.
It’s been quite some time since I did my own dog training qualification and despite it being through a well established company that most people in the local area base their careers off, I have personally evolved ethically since doing that, especially since starting my behavioural qualification and using the BHARCS way which I align very strongly with. Hence the reason why we would like to sit down and work out what Rachel can offer that will truly benefit our clients ethically rather than turning into a command and obey exercise with cookies. We’re excited to see Rachel’s progress and development 🙂
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend whatever your doing 😎

21/03/2024

I started writing this whilst surrounded by a gaggle of gently snoozing dogs 😌 well except little JoJo who’s snores are louder than Animal Cops Houston these days, I wonder what she’s dreaming about? I often like to imagine dogs dreaming of being the gleeful dog running away from the butchers with a string of sausages but she’s probably dreaming that I’m turning the channel over, thing is we don’t have live tv at home so I have 15 years of crap tv to catch up on.

Anyway, JoJo and Pablo have been constantly jump scaring me by shuffling around her house like the twins out the shining, I’m sure I heard them both mutter “come play with us… forever…and ever and ever…” last night, eyes reflecting in the darkness. I think by the end of the week a small tricycle to will appear walk to them around on.

12/03/2024

Hey hey! We’re back off holiday, we’ve had a really lovely break celebrating Lindsey’s birthday and had lots of opportunities observing free roaming dogs which was great! Our collective favourite was a particularly chonky and very woolly good boy that hung around a makers market. He kind of looked like if you threw one of those fake curly sheepskin rugs over a really square loaf of bread. He spent his time with us goofily rolling around on the floor and demanding scratches.

Anyway I think I must have a lot of spoons after the break as I didn’t even bat an eyelid at the car driving on the wrong side of the Chesterfield Road towards me today. I’m a literal cucumber right now 😆 😎 🥒

27/02/2024

Hey everyone! Just to let you know if you don’t already we’re away until 24th Feb - 10th March incase you message us and we take a while to reply. 🌞
Cheers to the team for holding the fort, poor Craig’s only gone and broken himself, super speedy recovery to him, he’s a ruddy trooper and cheers to his dad and the team for helping him out! Also cheers to Wendy and Jo for looking after our gaggle of resident hounds 🐶🐶🐶🐶

20/02/2024

Apparently I missed so here’s Pippa’s butt in all its glory. It did make me ponder on why I love whippets so much and I think it’s because they’re so in tune with human emotions. Non-sighthound people always comment on what a strong prey drive they must have but I’m yet to meet a grounded and relaxed sighthound that has an interest in hunting.
In other news give a big warm welcome to lovely Mr Winston, Rachel started with a freework session to have some hands off, low pressure time together. Very much appreciate humans like Winston’s for allowing their dog to go at their pace and not at the humans. Also to Rachel for listening to his needs and trusting her judgement ☺️
Enjoy the sunshine and the fresh blossom everyone 🌞