Stanley found my forever home

22/03/2024

Happy 3rd Gotcha Day to our fabulous boy, Stanley found his forever home.

He is still a complete snuggle monster. Has an amazing ability to hear a cheese packet being opened in the kitchen, whilst he’s anywhere in the house. But has selective hearing on being recalled away from an interesting scent.

He still suffers from separation anxiety, although we have now reverted to being teenagers and tiptoeing out of the front door, instead of using the back door, and we are managing to fool him. But obviously, if there’s a deer or hare to be chased, then the separation anxiety disappears along with Stanley!

His love for his rescue dog friend Orla, and his adoration for his Viszla friend, Penny Marshall, is a joy to see.

Stanley, you light up our world and everybody’s world that you enter. Who would have thought you could have such an impact on us all.

Also remembering Jackson found my forever home, who came over with Stanley on the same flight and imparted such wisdom & knowledge to his fellow hounds, but was sadly taken over the rainbow bridge far too quickly.

14/02/2024

Happy Valentines Day to all my lovely Facebook friends!

I have had a very busy morning delivering all my love heart treats to all my admirers.

It’s very hard being such a handsome, adorable dude! 🥰🥰

13/01/2024

Please Mum, can you put my bed in the sun?

You can take the dog out of Cyprus, but you can’t take Cyprus out of the dog! 💕💕

10/08/2022

My mummy won this on the Apollo’s Angels auction for me. I love it!
Thank you to everyone who was involved in it 🐾💕🐾

21/03/2022

Hello all my lovely Facebook Friends!

Can you believe it, it’s my first Gotcha Day! I’ve been in my forever home for a WHOLE year and I’ve loved every second of it.

My mummy and daddy say that I am a gentle soul and that they have never had such a loving dog. But I also hear them muttering things about ‘separation anxiety’ and ’lack of recall.’ I do try hard, but it doesn’t always work out as I get sidetracked or upset.

To celebrate my Gotcha Day, I went on another flight today but this time I wasn’t in a crate, I was in a cable car with mummy and daddy and we were at the Heights of Abraham in Matlock Bath. I had a lovely day with lots of treats.

I know that I’m a very lucky boy and am so grateful to all the wonderful people who feature heavily in my life. You all know who you are, and I just want to say, THANK YOU!

Mummy has helped me set up an Instagram Account, where she helps me post photos and videos. Please feel free to follow me 💕🐾💕

06/01/2022

https://www.facebook.com/Have-You-SEEN-Charlie-Missing-Carlisle-CA1-111000614785019/

Charlie is an adult male GSP who went missing while on a regular walk in the Johnny Bulldogs Lonning

24/12/2021

Happy Christmas Everyone 💕

19/09/2021

Hello all my lovely Facebook friends!

Mummy said that I needed to update you all with how I am getting on, because it’s been six months since I arrived and found my forever home. Six months! I can hardly believe it. I have loved every single minute of it.

I have been a very busy boy since I last updated you in May. I went on holiday to Scotland with my mummy, daddy and daughter and grand kids. I wasn’t allowed to stay in the same place as they were staying, as it wasn’t dog friendly, so I stayed Grey Home Boarding with Kelly and Scottish and their dogs. Well, I had the best of both worlds. Mummy and daddy took me out every day for walks and then took me back to Kelly in the evening where I played with the other dogs. I had a wonderful time and the other dogs taught me how to mark my scent and bark properly.

Recently mummy and daddy have been taking me to Grove Boarding Kennels, where I have been having overnight stays. I was a bit apprehensive at first, because I like to constantly be with mummy and daddy, but I’ve had a great time. There are lots of dogs there and we all have a good natter. I get to find out all the local doggy gossip and we all share our tips for getting longer walks or getting more treats. I’m always exhausted when I get home, as I never want to miss out on anything, so forgo my day naps.

One of the tricks that I have learnt, is that if I stand next to the fridge when I hear the kettle boiling (which happens quite a lot as daddy is a prolific tea/coffee drinker) invariably I will be given a piece of chicken from the fridge. Okay, so it doesn’t happen often when mummy does it, but if I stand in front of the fridge door when daddy is making the drinks, I always get a treat.

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I could only dream of having a cosy bed and a belly full of food. And now I have three beds, yes three beds and two regular meals every day. I don’t have to beg for food or search for scraps, I just get out of my bed in the morning and mummy or daddy are filling my bowl up for me. In the afternoon I like to keep reminding them that my dinner is due, so from about 4pm onwards I will make sure that I go and find them and never leave their sides. If I reverse up to them, than I also get a nice rub on my pelvis bones. That definitely hits the spot. They always feed me at 5pm, but maybe one day they might fall for my charms and bring it forward. There are a couple of days that I get extra treats, which I love. Toothbrush Tuesday, where I get an edible toothbrush and immediately take it out in the garden and bury it! And Fish Friday, where I get a tin of sardines mixed in with my kibble. Mummy also bought a proper toothbrush and toothpaste, to try and combat my doggy breath. She cleaned my teeth and went to smell my breath, only to discover that it didn’t smell very minty. Well, that’s because I have liver toothpaste. I do hope that mummy doesn’t use it instead of her own!

I think that I have been a very good boy since living here. I’ve had no accidents in the house……. Oh yes, sorry mummy, I had hoped that you had forgotten about that incident…….I was recovering from having a benign cyst removed and as I had chewed through three, yes three, collars at the vets, was sent home in a body suit. There were strict instructions; no walks for two weeks, only on the lead in the garden to do my business. Well I was having none of that, so after going into the garden numerous times and doing nothing, mummy succumbed to taking me a few feet up the footpath next to our garden. This was dull, dull, dull, as there were so many smells that needed to be smelt outside this boundary. I was very bored. And we all know what happens when a GSP gets bored! So, on day 4 I broke into the room where my kibble is kept and managed to eat a huge quantity that made me look Billy Bunter. I instantly regretted it, when I saw the look of horror on mummy’s face. I felt incredibly unwell, thirsty and sick. As it was night time mummy didn’t take me to the vets, but barricaded the hallway so she could hear me if I wasn’t well. The next morning she rang the vets who said nothing to eat for 48 hours. Well, to be quite honest, I think if I had seen another bit of kibble I would have thrown up. Anyway, mummy took me for lots of little walks down the footpath that day and I soon felt a lot better. That was until I went to bed and my tummy started gurgling and I felt very unwell. Mummy hadn’t barricaded the hallway, so I decided that I needed to find a place as far away from the bedroom as possible. When confronted with a stone floor utility room or pale coloured carpeted lounge and dining room, it was an easy choice. After managing to either throw up or splatter over the carpet sixteen times, I felt so much better. It was at that point that I suddenly realised that I might have made the wrong choice, as the carpet did still look lovely and new.
I couldn’t look mummy in the eye in the morning when she came out of the bedroom and saw me. The stench was pretty overwhelming and when mummy saw what I had done, her face was crestfallen. But she didn’t shout at me and gave me cuddles in between her tears and trying to clean up the ruined carpet. I think after using the carpet cleaner for the fifth time, she gave up. When daddy came back from his sailing trip away, he said that he couldn’t see the marks but suggested that she kept cleaning the carpet to get rid of the smell.

I am a very lucky boy, because I have got lots of lovely aunties that spoil me when they see me. They always have treats for me and I repay them with lots of kisses and cuddles. Whenever I am out people remark on how handsome I am and what a lovely or unusual colour I am.

It’s truly humbling to feel the love that I have received over the last six months, from my mummy, daddy, their family, friends and complete strangers that I meet. I just can’t believe how much my life has changed. My aunties are all saying that I am looking more grown up now, that I hold myself differently and that I am looking confident. I have gradually accepted changes, learnt to not be afraid of different sounds, shapes and noises. Six months ago I was petrified of seeing a horse walking down the street. Today on a walk, I watched two horses galloping past me. My next challenge is my separation anxiety. Twice a day my mummy and daddy leave me for five minutes. This really upsets me and I usually start crying after a minute. I don’t like being left on my own, as I can’t quite accept that they will always come back to me. They are hoping that time will help me overcome this obstacle, like it has helped me get to where I am now.

As I think back to six months ago, I would just like to say another massive thank you to Janice, Lena and Donna for making this happen. For giving me a chance to have a life that I could only have dreamt of.

I must go now as it’s only thirty minutes until my tea time, so it’s time for a back rub!

Much love,

Stanley 🐾

17/05/2021

Hello all my lovely Facebook Friends!

Mummy said that I needed to update you all with how I’m getting on, as I’ve been over here for two whole months and I’ve only written a couple of posts.

Well, I think that mummy and daddy now know who rules the roost in this house. Moi! Little old moi! I’ve shown them that if I don’t want to do something then I won’t! I’ll just put on the brakes and not move! No, I’m not going anywhere! I’ll stay here, thank you very much! But then mummy will just pick me up and carry me past whatever it is I refuse to go past. Oh, the indignity of it! When she puts me back down, I just pretend that it didn’t happen and carry on as normal.

Mummy and daddy are VERY impressed by my high prey drive. I’ve heard them say that they have never seen anything like it before at all and how are they ever going to let me off the lead as I’ll just be gone. Take the night that they both took me out for my evening stroll, and I could smell it as soon as I got out of our drive. And yes, after 10 metres I knew it was in there. Yes, in my next door neighbours bush. I could smell it and see it. And why couldn’t I drag my mummy into that bush to catch it? Why couldn’t I pull her across the road to pursue the escaping, and though I say it myself, rather frightened, muntjac deer? It was a battle of strength, and on that occasion my mummy won, and I didn’t get to catch him. Hmmmmm, and when I saw him in our garden again later in the week, daddy wouldn’t let me catch him either. Don’t they realise that this is what I’m meant to do? And that’s the reason why I cried so much when it was bedtime, because I thought that I had let them down by not being able to catch the prey.

Mummy and daddy practice my recall with me in the garden, when I’m playing or hiding things in my special hiding place. Actually, I could do with a sign that say, ‘keep out’, as this is my sacred place and they keep on going into it and collecting all my toys. Anyway, I’m pretty good doing recall in the garden and it seems like I have them fooled, because when they take me to a secure field and let me off the lead, I don’t! Why do I want to go back to them when there are so many new smells to be smelt? They will always be there won’t they, but these smells won’t.

Today mummy and daddy took me to the beach. Something about wedding anniversary and me being here 2 months and treat. Really? Treat? What part of it was a treat? I had seen mummy google GSPs and water and heard her read out to daddy…. German Shorthaired Pointers love swimming and will take to the water whenever they can. Really? I certainly don’t resemble this sentence! So we had to go through the whole rigmarole of 1.5 hour car drive to the beach, open boot and I escape…….yes, they were too slow……ok, yes they did catch me after a few seconds, but only because I let them. And then I was put on the short lead and daddy walked me onto the sand. SAND. SAND in my webbed feet! No, no, no! I don’t like it! Then I was put on the training line and mummy tried to get me to go in the sea. NO! NO! NO! I do NOT like water. End of. Not up for discussion.No!

Well okay, I must confess that there was a nice bit to the day. An ice cream! Yes, I liked that. I liked that a lot. The bottom of the cone from mum & dad’s cones with some ice cream on it. It was very yummy. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as big as their cones, but I guess it was better than nothing.

I know that I’m a very lucky boy to be living here with my loving mummy and daddy, but actually I’m beginning to think it’s them that are the lucky ones. So many strangers stop us and tell mummy and daddy how handsome I am, what lovely colourings I have, how well behaved I am, and how lucky they are to have me. That yes, I think that these strangers are all right. My mummy and daddy are lucky to have me, complicated, confused but loveable Stanley, as part of their family!

Right, I had better sign off now as I’m tired and need to dream of deer and ice cream…zzzzzzz

06/04/2021

Hello all my lovely FB friends!

I can’t believe that it has been over a week since I last said hello, but more importantly, it’s been over two weeks since I’ve been living with my new mummy and daddy. What’s more, I think they still love me and I really love them. It feels like I’ve lived here a very long time, as everything is really comfortable, but sometimes I get spooked by something and have a flashback to my past.

Mummy and daddy in the last week took me out for a walk socialising in a massive country park. I liked it a lot. I met lots of other dogs and I wasn’t always scared of them. Sometimes I didn’t mind them sniffing me, but I would never sniff them first. I’m working very hard on getting my tail not to go in between my legs when I meet another dog, but this really is work in progress. I’m also trying not to shake as much when I meet dogs and humans. I shouldn’t really show every one how scared I am of them. I’m working hard on this too.

I’m playing fetch properly now. Well after my little accident in the secure dog field, where I ran off and hid the ball in some brambles, got stuck in the brambles and daddy had to come in and rescue me, and pull the thorn out of my ear. There was lots of blood everywhere and if I had listened to mummy and daddy in the first place, then I wouldn’t have gone in there anyway. So now I do listen more and come to them in the garden and secure field, and it’s so much fun.

I haven’t told you have I? I have a friend now! Yes, a lovely friend. She is called Sky and is a Dalmatian X spaniel. She is very pretty with her black and white spots. She is very friendly and gentle, and I have been invited round to her garden to play with her.

I had a very traumatic experience this morning. Daddy put me on the lead and had some parcels in his hand. He took me down the road to a red van that said ‘ Mobile Post Office.’ There was a lovely lady behind a counter on the van, who was kneeling down and trying to entice me onto the van with treats. Well, I wasn’t falling for that again. I don’t want to leave home again and be couped up in a cage on a van and travel for hours on end. So I put my brakes on and refused to go onto the van. Treats or no treats, I’m not stupid. But daddy just picked me up and carried me onto the van. The lady gave me treats and daddy handed some parcels over and got a receipt and then we left and went for a lovely long walk. I’m worried that I’m over thinking things.

Well, I had better sign off, as I can see mummy is heading for the fridge and that’s my favourite place because that’s where the chicken and ham treats come from. Got to go……..

29/03/2021

Hello all my lovely Facebook friends!

Well, I can’t believe it’s been a week since I last said hello. It feels like I’m living in a dream, and if I’m honest I don’t really want to wake up from it, as it’s great. So I sleep quite a bit and relive everything I’ve done that day.

My new mummy had a birthday last week, and some of her friends bought presents and cards around for her. We both greeted everybody at the back door, and it was lovely as I got lots of tummy rubs and cuddles. But it must have been my birthday too, as they brought me lovely pressies as well. But I’m sure my birthday isn’t until next month. I like my mummies friends. 💕

I have hidden quite a lot in the garden; in the pampas grass, in the laurel bush, in the h**e bush, behind the shed. I can see my mummy and daddy frantically looking for me, but I stay still and silent until they are on their hands and knees searching for me and then I’ll go, ‘oh, are you looking for me?’ and just walk out and play again.

I’m not sure about all these English dogs. They’re not like my old Cyprus muckers. They smell different. I think they know that I’m not from these parts. I used to be a pretty confident little chap back in the kennels, but now I keep my tail between my legs and keep my head down. I haven’t really made any doggy friends here yet.

This afternoon was very strange. I had heard daddy tell mummy that he had bought her some dog training sessions for her birthday pressie. I did think that mummy wasn’t coming to heel quick enough for daddy’s liking, and when I was put in the car to go the training too, I thought it would be interesting to watch mummy being trained. There was a lovely man, Matt, that mummy and daddy met in this really secure field. He smelt very doggy and I instantly liked him, and wished I was having training and not mummy. I wandered off, as there were lots of new smells to be smelt. Then Matt started calling my name...Stanleeeeeeeee. I didn’t really understand why he was calling me, as it was mummy that was having the training, but I thought I had better run back to him and make sure that everything was okay. And Matt gave me a teeny weeny piece of yumminess as my reward. Well, I was hooked. Every time he called me back, I went running. Sometimes I got treats and other times just strokes, but it was a fabulous game and I loved it. Then I went further away and then I heard a whistle blasting several times and my mummy calling me. I thought she needed help, as she was having her training, so I ran at full sp*ed back to her and she gave me some chicken. I truly loved this game and played it with mummy several times. We had a lovely time and Matt said he was very impressed with me, although I didn’t hear him say anything about mummy improving.

Mummy and daddy have taken lots of photos of me during the last week, so I’ve managed to hack into their account and borrow some pics. Time for another sleep now.....night night.....🐶💕

22/03/2021

Hello all my lovely followers!

Well, it’s been a strange day and a half! Me and my muckers, met up with nearly 200 mates, and left Cyprus in the Sunday morning, travelling ‘cargo class’ to Maastricht. Then a lovely man took me out of my plane crate and put me in his van, with 18 of my fellow travellers. Apparently we went through the Euro Tunnel, and then were driven up to Cambridge Services.

I didn’t really know what was going on, as some of my new friends left the van here, and I was really worried that nobody would want me. But then I was taken out of the van and placed into the arms of my new mummy and my passport was given to my new daddy. I didn’t really know what was going on, but they seemed like nice people.

They put me into a crate in the boot, because I wasn’t really interested in going for a little walk, or going for a p*e. BUT I was VERY interested in the cooked chicken pieces that my new parents gave me and I then realised that everything was going to be okay.

It didn’t take us long to get to what is now my ‘forever’ home, and I really like it. We all went into the garden and every time I saw my reflection in the glass, I thought it was my old muckers. But it’s not. And I don’t think I will see any of them here, (although mummy has said that Auntie Lena & Auntie Janice apparently arrange reunions, so hopefully I will see them then.)

I cried for a little while before going to sleep, even though I could hear the reassuring voices of my new mum & dad. But I did eventually go to sleep and it was lovely when my new dad got up at 5am with me and we chilled together in the conservatory.

So I’ve been up for 5 hours today, but I’ve mainly been sleeping in my cosy bed. Sometimes I play with my toys and lots of the time I get cuddles and strokes.

My new garden is very interesting. There are lots of birds chatting and I can hear dogs barking in the distance. Daddy has told me that we might go further afield next week, after I’ve become acclimatised to my new family.

I really think I’m going to like it here. I just want to thank everybody who made this happen, you are such wonderful people.

I also.........zzzzzz..... sorry but I need a snooze........I’ll post again soon......zzzz

25/02/2021

25/02/2021

25/02/2021

Someone is enjoying this

12/02/2021

Reserved

03/02/2021

Hunter is a lovely 10 month old smaller size (50cms 15kg) GSP boy currently in Cyprus who is seeking his forever home. Still a bit on the skinny side and we would expect him to be 17-20kg once he's filled out.