New Week, New Start

Not only is it a new week but it's a new moon so it's an excellent day to draw a line under any bad stuff and start completely afresh. Bad stuff certainly became the theme of the weekend following the tragic death of a bulldog in transit to her new home on Saturday afternoon. What made it so upsetting for all involved was that the dog wasn't hot or distressed she simply died in her sleep. It was very difficult for all concerned to come to terms with and many hours has been spent on the phone trying to make sense of it. In reality, there is no sense to be made; it's a risk we all take, but I just wanted to use this tragidy to relay some basic rules when transporting dogs, especially bulldogs, especially in the Summer months.

If you have air conditioning, keep it at a constant cool temperature and keep the windows shut, if you don't have air conditioning then please do not travel any dog on a hot day unless you absolutely have too - waiting until later in the day when it is much cooler and safer. Open windows are fine until you get stuck in traffic and that when you can no longer control the interior temperature of the car and an overheating situation could occur.

One of the biggest misconceptions when travelling dogs is that you need to stop frequently, you don't! I can't stress this enough because each time you stop, get the dog out of the car, walk it around in the sun and put it back in the car you are unsettling the dog all over again. If you need to stop for a wee or a coffee feel free to offer your dog a drink but don't feel the need to take him out for a wee too unless he really needs to go and if he's settled then just leave him alone.

The following was written for rescue volunteers transporting dogs to foster care, but it may be useful for the general public to have access to it also - please feel free to read it here

The evening became a little less stressful though as my daughter's birthday brought about a small party in the garden, and as the night drew on and the bottle of wine I was drinking grew lighter the awful events of the day were finally fading into a blur. The party went ahead with no hitches or hiccups and as someone had brought some chinse lanterns we had great fun letting them go and watching them travel for miles in the skies above Midhurst - sorry to anyone that found one Sunday morning with the ravings of a group of kids scrawled over them - well I say kids, Katie was 22 on Saturday but I guess when you reach my age anyone under the age of 30 is a child LOL

My PowerPoint presentation is finished and I'm actually rather pleased with it, I've never used PowerPoint before and was suprised at how much fun it was. So Sunday I sat in the sun for most of the day studying from my AMTRA training manual and hoping enough of this information stays in my brain for me to actually pass the exam in October.

Have a great week and please look after your bulldog.