Lucky Me

Apologies for having disappeared from blogland for a little while, I’ve been busy busy finishing off my Christmas shopping and battling the need to hibernate in this cold weather. How’s everyone’s Christmas shopping going, or has it been totally disrupted by all this snow? After visiting a specialist bottled ale and lager shop today (it’s amazing and I really should have taken my camera) I’m all finished. I even have wrapping paper, although obviously I’ll end up running out on the last present because that’s just what happens.

I had some great news this week. My uncle, who’s also my boss, bought some raffle tickets from Canine Partners and gave each of us in the office a ticket and I won first prize! I've been so lucky with wins this year; fisrt Vintage at Goodwood, now this! We had no idea what the first prize was so I had to run into the office and search for the raffle info and it seems I’ve won a two night stay at Warner’s Bodelwyddan Castle in Wales! I’m so excited and am taking my bestest friend Jessy. We’re thinking of booking for spring as the views look lovely and I’m sure they’ll be even lovelier at that time of year.

Jess and I being silly billys sometime last year

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned Canine Partners before but without meaning to sound like some naff charity advert, the work they do is amazing! They train dogs, mainly labradors, retrievers and labradoodles to assist disabled people with all sorts of tasks, such as loading and unloading the washing machine, picking things up off the floor, pushing an empty wheelchair closer to their owner (or partner as they’re called), retrieving all sorts of items (most importantly the phone in an emergency), handing a purse/wallet to a cashier, opening and closing doors, the list goes on. They dogs are amazing, as are the trainers who teach them all these invaluable skills.

My uncle’s Partner, Jet, is an enormous black Labrador and his favourite tasks are finding the phone and shutting the conservatory door. His skill of finding the phone and his common sense were invaluable when my uncle, Les, fell from his wheelchair one evening and cut his leg open. He lost an awful lot of blood, was unable to reach a phone and was slipping out of consciousness. Jet searched f my uncles mobile, took the phone to him and licked and nudged his face to keep him conscious. Jet would usually have also taken him a blanket and lied next to him to keep him warm until help arrived, but I think he was put of doing that by all the blood. As well as being a super hero style dog, he’s also just a normal dog with a sense of humour and who is great company.