Travels with Colt

29/06/2023

Not entirely convinced these very fluffy dogs are to be trusted! 🦙🦙🦙

29/06/2023

Hola beautiful Cusco! So many smells and sounds and exciting things to see … nevermind all the llamas!! 🦙 🦙

07/06/2023

Kennedy “Cat” Park were kitties RULE the kingdom and keep giving me the stink eye. Zero kitty fluffs given.

06/06/2023

“Ok I’ve left you alone to work for a whole hour. NOW can we go back to the dog park?”

05/06/2023

Gracias .pe for my beautiful Peruvian bandana! We can’t wait to explode Peru for two months and now I look like a stylish boy! 🇵🇪 🌎 🐕

04/06/2023

Hola Peru!!

03/06/2023

Today I schmoosed the pretty air hostesses on who made our flight so wonderful and were very kind to me.

I don’t normally stand up like this but the girl sitting next to us was very scared of flying and she asked if she could give me a cuddle to feel better. Of course my mom said YES!

We’re so happy that we have booked all our flights in Peru on Sky. 😊

02/06/2023

Laundry day. Snooze time 😴 😴

28/05/2023

Another housesit done and dusted! 8 doggos in total. I played so hard that I need a few weeks off to recover. 😂

Thanks for an awesome week Myles, Nola, Pheobe, Thumper, Luigi, Tigger and Eeyore!

17/05/2023

Waiting for da bus.

12/05/2023

I’m a big boy now!!! A whole 2 YEARS OLD!!!

05/05/2023

This is my “what the fluff are you doing napping when there is a tennis ball to be thrown” face.

05/05/2023

This is my friend Trixie who had a rough start to life before she came to live with her mom. When I arrived she was REALLY scared of me and kept barking at me all the time. But I really wanted us to be friends!

I was a patient, quiet boy and I didn’t bark back at her because I wanted her to trust me.

Now she’s my new BFF and we’ve sure got up to some mischief together!

20/01/2023

Up with the sunrise this morning and boy was it worth it! ☀️

20/01/2023

We have been having SO MUCH fun in Scotland that we’ve neglected to post for a while!

Meet my new bestie Tayo! We are getting up to all sorts of mischief together and playing like only teenage boys can. 😜 All furniture and breakables have been moved out of the way 🤣🤣🤣

29/12/2022

Had the bestest Christmas in London with Shelley and she didn’t make me wear a stoopid hat! 🎄❄️🎅

Santa bought me two stuffed toys from the charity shop which were eviscerated by 11am on Boxing Day. Boom! Mission accomplished.

30/07/2022

SO PROUD of this boy today!! We were having coffee in and there was a LOUD balloon POP!

While C**t did sit up and look around, he didn’t make a peep.

What was a lot more challenging was the number of people who keep calling him over to say hi or stopping to pet him without asking.

If you see a service dog in public we’d be super grateful if you IGNORED us. ❤️

22/07/2022

Maybe if I stare at her with my puppy eyes I can guilt her into another walk.

🇿🇦

21/07/2022

Thank fluff for or loadshedding would be unbearable!!

🇿🇦

18/07/2022

Raw chicken neck snacks are a great source of calcium for your pup BUT they are high in fat so don’t make it a huge part of their diet.

The bones are soft enough not be pose a choking risk BUT never give your pooch COOKED bones because that makes them brittle and likely to splinter.

Thanks for this delicious snack for C**t!

🇿🇦

15/07/2022

C**t’s terrible teens have been super hard. Mom has shed more than a few tears in moments of frustration. Things that we thought we had learnt well were suddenly forgotten and we had to start all over again!

Focus has been such a challenge because when I see other dogs I just want to play, play, play!

But today we had an amazing trip to the coffee shop at the dog park. This other doggie stared right at me and kept barking and I sat completely still and relaxed and paid attention to my mom when she called my name. Success!!

Baby steps and we’ll get through this together. ❤️❤️

🇿🇦

27/05/2022

The LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs are heading off to Texas to bring love and comfort to the families and victims of the Uvalde school shooting as well as the first responders.

These dogs - there are now a team of 130 in total - have been deployed to bring love to victims of all sorts of tragedies including SuperStorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

While my mama and are aren't traditionally religious we do believe that our Creator meant for us to share a really special relationship with each other.

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

You can meet them all and follow their pages here: https://www.lutheranchurchcharities.org/meetthedogs...

16/02/2022

Stubby was a good boy like me!

Named Stubby, he was a dog of an “uncertain breed.” Serving with the American forces, Stubby was the most decorated dog of World War I and was promoted to the rank of sergeant for his heroics in battle. He was a good boy, unless you were a German soldier.

--On This Day in History, S**t Went Down: February 5, 1918--

Stubby was a stray. A few months after the U.S. finally entered the war, in July of 1917, Stubby was wandering about campus at Yale University. At the same time, members of the 102nd Infantry Division were training there, and he hung around, probably thinking those guys had some food. Corporal James Conroy took a liking to Stubby, and took the good boy back to the barracks, keeping his presence hidden from uptight officers who have to pretend that they don’t love dogs because regulations or some s**t.

One of the things the men taught Stubby to do was salute. When it came time to embark for Europe, Conroy smuggled Stubby aboard the troop ship. Soon after arriving in France, Stubby was discovered by Conroy’s commanding officer. Stubby saluted and the officer said well s**t I guess he can stay.

Stubby’s original role was to boost morale for the troops. If you know anything about WWI, it was … unpleasant; keeping up spirits was important. But that would not be Stubby’s only role in combat. And he saw a lot of combat. First entering battle on February 5, 1918, he was under constant fire for over a month. In one battle he was wounded by a German hand gr***de. I’m just going to assume the soldier who threw it didn’t know a dog was in the blast zone because what the f**k?

Sergeant Stubby never shirked, he was involved in 17 battles. What do I mean by “involved?” He could hear the whine of incoming artillery before humans could and warned them to take cover. He also warned of gas attacks and located wounded soldiers in no man’s land—that horrifying section of death between enemy trenches.

Late one night, while most were asleep, Stubby heard a strange sound. He snuck out to investigate and found a German spy and bit him on the ass, holding tight to the spy’s pants and refusing to let go. The ruckus brought Stubby’s comrades, and they took the man prisoner. It was that action that earned Stubby his promotion to sergeant. They also gave Stubby the spy’s Iron Cross they’d taken from him to add to his already ample medal collection.

After the war Conroy smuggled Stubby back home, where he led numerous parades and met three presidents. He died in his sleep in 1926, while snuggled in Conroy’s arms. Stubby’s obituary was longer than those of most famous people of the time. His remains are in the Smithsonian.

#

Enough of the tough guy veneer. I do audio versions of all these posts for paying subscribers. I made today's public so if you want you can hear me get all choked up reading the end of this piece. I don't give a s**t if you make fun of me, because dogs. Listen here: https://jamesfell.substack.com/p/audio-on-this-day-in-history-february-2a5

Oh, yeah. And please buy my sweary f**king history book at JamesFell.com.

16/02/2022

Mama and I have been fostering dis fat potato from Rescue is Life for a few weeks and I fink I am going to be sad when he goes to his new forever home.

I was SUCH a good big brada even when he bites my tail.

09/02/2022

What a good girl! ❤️

Judy, a purebred pointer, was the mascot of several ships in the Pacific, and was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and taken to a prison camp. There she met Aircraftsman Frank Williams, who shared his small portion of rice with her.

Judy raised morale in the POW camp, and also barked when poisonous snakes, crocodiles or even tigers approached the prisoners. When the prisoners were shipped back to Singapore, she was smuggled out in a rice sack, never whimpering or betraying her presence to the guards.

The next day, that ship was torpedoed. Williams pushed Judy out of a porthole in an attempt to save her life, even though there was a 15-foot drop to the sea. He made his own escape from the ship, but was then recaptured and sent to a new POW camp.

He didn't know if Judy had survived, but soon he began hearing stories about a dog helping drowning men reach pieces of debris after the shipwreck. And when Williams arrived at the new camp, he said: "I couldn’t believe my eyes! As I walked through the gate, a scraggly dog hit me square between the shoulders and knocked me over. I’d never been so glad to see the old girl!"

They spent a year together at that camp in Sumatra. "Judy saved my life in so many ways," said Williams. "But the greatest of all was giving me a reason to live. All I had to do was look into those weary, bloodshot eyes and ask myself: 'What would happen to her if I died?' I had to keep going."

Once hostilities ceased, Judy was then smuggled aboard a troopship heading back to Liverpool. In England, she was awarded the Dickin Medal (the "Victoria Cross" for animals) in May 1946. Her citation reads: "For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners, and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness".

At the same time, Frank Williams was awarded the PDSA's White Cross of St. Giles for his devotion to Judy. Frank and Judy spent a year after the war visiting the relatives of English POWs who had not survived, and Frank said that Judy "always provided a comforting presence to the families."

When Judy finally died at the age of 13, Frank spent two months building a granite and marble memorial in her memory, which included a plaque describing her life story.

20/12/2021

He’s getting into the festive spirit. Eventually. 😂

19/12/2021

I made two lovely fwends while I was in Joburg! Because I am a psychiatric service dog, my mama allows people to touch and cuddle me if they ask and she doesn’t need me to perform a task for her.

BUT she taught my new friends a few things:

1. That it’s REALLY important that they ASK before they pet ANY dog because lots of dogs are afraid of children and they need to be introduced carefully and gently or they might snap or bark because they are scared.

Dogs can always learn to love children but it takes time and patience and children need to learn to be gentle and quiet around them until they do.

2. Never, never, never kiss a dog on the face. Some dogs might not mind it but some DO and they find it threatening. You could get nipped in the face as a signal not to do that again!

3. If a dog is running towards you and you are afraid, stand very still and he/she will sniff you and probably move away. Never RUN. If you run, they will think you want to play and they WILL run after you.

4. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ASK if you can pet a service or guide dog. They are working and petting causes them to lose focus and get excited. Be ok if the handler SAYS NO! Service and guide dogs are an important support to their handlers and they can’t have you distracting them from their work.

23/11/2021

❤️❤️❤️❤️

23/11/2021

😍😍😍