Half term (and working for Securicor)

The half term break is over - the roads are congested again*. It has been a full-on young dog experience for us. The great thing is that our regular guests get on well with the new ones. We had lots of puppy cockerpoo fun.

Cockerpoos and springerpoos are welcome new additions to Barnes and Putney Commons. Labradoodles have been around for five years or so. Somewhere there must be some pretty smug un-neutered poodle males.  

Before cockerpoos, the young dog of choice in SW13, SW14 & SW15 were labradors, charming if hungry, fellows all. Were you walking a couple of them on the permafrost of Wimbledon Common and you came across a thawing woolly mammoth carcase, it would vanish in the twinkling of an eye and the dogs would still go home wondering what was for supper.

One of the Dog Hotel’s first guests is the much missed gentle giant Luca. A wonderful laid-back Rhodesian Ridgeback. The voice Phoebe gave him was deep and slightly regretful, (‘Oops, you mean that I was not supposed to upend that German Sheppard?’) in a mildly South African accent. Sadly he is now hunting lion on the celestial savannah. His owners now have a Ridgeback puppy bursting with inexhaustible get-up and go. She is a devotee of ‘Surface surfing’ whereby despite her diminutive size she will clear the kitchen worktops in the blink of an eye. She was a guest last week, a sparing partner for the young spaniel.

Luca's idea of a good time, if only Mooli would stop singing.

*My post art school job was driving for Securicor’s cash-in-transit business. I had regular early morning runs, the route intersecting with school-bound traffic in several places. I quickly learnt armoured Ford Transits stand no chance against estate cars driven by sheepskin-coated mums with children playing-up on the back seat.

Many years later, I art-directed a group photo of Securicor’s management for their annual report. The slightly camp photographer insisted on calling each manager by his Christian name and job title. The managers were grumpy and unsmiling until the photographer asked, ‘Could Dick head of communications move... Nothing but smiles after that, except from Dick head of…