On Blossom

Today I'm going to write in praise of Blossom.

Our Tara, a somewhat grumpy Collie Cross rescue dog, was an enormous part of our family from 2008 until 2017.  She was so special that we didn't think that we could ever love another dog the way we loved Tara.  

After 6 months without a dog we were also talking about how being a dog owner can restrict you a bit on holidays.  We go away in the camper van and that meant that things like shopping trips or trips to the cinema, theme parks or museums are often out of the question because you can't leave the dog in the vehicle on a hot day.  We thought we would leave getting another dog for a while.  

Three months further on, we realised that we had a dog-shaped hole in our family, and that we needed to fill it.  We could live with the restrictions and make it work.  I started searching for the new family member.

There were a few criteria: 

1. It needed to be camper-van sized.  Tara had been quite a large dog.  When all five of us were in the camper van on our holidays it began to get a little crowded.  Once the bed was down in the van, there wasn't all that much space for her (she was too wet/muddy/sandy to be allowed on the bed).  As she got older it was increasingly noticeable that when she got out of the van in the morning she was a bit creaky and needed a good long time to stretch.  Our new dog had to be a smaller breed to fit with the camper van lifestyle.
2. It needed to be active.  We are an active, outdoorsy family.  We need a dog that can cope with a long day walking cliff-paths, roaming in the woods or climbing a mountain.  A lap dog would not be suitable.
3. We wanted to choose another rescue dog.  We knew that we had made a wonderful new life for Tara.  On searching, however, I was confronted with the fact that many rescue dogs come with the tag, "not suitable for a family with young children".  Because of their uncertain backgrounds, many dogs can have attachment issues, or are nervous or uncertain or have unknown temperaments.  Tara had been one of these but a lot of hard work and training had paid off, and while she was still grumpy with other dogs and with men with deep voices, she was fine and affectionate with everybody else.  I had a full year of pretty intensive work with her before the children came along.  I wouldn't have the luxury of all that time to work with a rescue dog this time.  We realised that we were going to need to get a puppy.  We could then be certain of its background and would be able to train it from the beginning to fit in with our family.
4. Timing - I'm a teacher so am lucky enough to get six weeks off in the Summer.  It would be ideal to get the dog towards the beginning of the holiday so that we would have several weeks to work with it before going back to school and passing pup on to a dog-walker on the days when I was at work.

I set about searching the Internet.  We researched different breeds and decided that we would like a Cocker or Springer Spaniel or similar.  I learnt what questions to ask breeders and how to check whether they seemed reputable.  At about the right time so that the puppy would be ready to collect in the holiday, I started looking.  I used www.pets4homes.co.uk.  The first breeder I contacted didn't answer any of the questions I asked in my e-mail.  The second breeder had already answered them all in their advert!  They were not "breeders" in that they didn't breed for their living.  They were a family with dogs, and they tended to allow their female dogs to have two litters before they spayed them.  This meant that while they were experienced with dealing with puppies, they weren't doing it all the time.  These puppies were gorgeous, and clearly had a lot of handling as their daughter and her friends played with them every day after school.  We went to visit and Isobel and I instantly fell in love with the female of the litter.  We said that we wanted her right away, and named her Blossom.

In the year and a half since then, Blossom has made herself very much one of the family.  She is good-natured, extremely soppy and demanding of love, very sociable and energetic.  She's also absolutely beautiful and knows it.  Everybody who meets Blossom loves her.  Her little bottom almost wags itself right off when she is pleased to see you.  On the weekend she is sent to "wake mummy up" and I hear her feet as she scampers at top speed up the stairs and launches herself on top of me and proceeds to lick me until I am well and truly awake.  She is responsive to training, patient and usually well behaved, though she does still have a tendency to steal any shoes that have been left lying around.  She is very tolerant of Isobel's demands and commands.  I'm so glad we've got Blossom.  It wouldn't be possible not to love such a loving little creature but she has wiggled her way very firmly into our hearts.