Never refuse a pleasure.

These past few weeks I've been posting pictures of Tippy the hiking dog. She didn't always get to go on walks with us because sometimes it wasn't wise, especially if there was a chance of having to pass through cows as she didn't like cows one bit. Anyway there was this one time when I decided to go by myself and leave Tippy at home with Vicki. They gave me a ride as far as the woods above Chatsworth House and then dropped me off. This was all fine up to the point where they drove off because as I waved them goodbye I spotted Tippy's little face through the back window of the car and it was a terrible heart wrenching picture, one which rendered a nice days hiking impossible.

So I quickly started waving my arms frantically in the hope that Vicki was looking through her rear view mirror. Thankfully she recognised the waves as ones of distress rather than ones of goodbye and duly brought the car to a halt. There was a kind of smug look on Tippy's face as I opened the car door to let her out.

My advice to you is never refuse your dog a pleasure in their lives because one day they will be gone and then it's to later. I'm sure glad I listened to my heart.

Tippy on Win Hill in Derbyshire.

This week I am going to show you another picture of Tippy as a hiking dog. Here you can see her with Vicki on Win Hill in Derbyshire. 

As you can probably tell she was a young dog at the time.

Kinder Scout Walk.

Last week I spoke of how in later life Tippy had a limit as to how far she wanted to walk, in her younger days there were no such restrictions and she was quite happy to walk as far as you wanted to take her in any weather that was going at the time. 

This looks a nice place for a lie down.

 Rough and tumble in the snow.

Come on Fallon lets go.

This weeks pictures are from a family walk on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire. As you can see it was a fun day out for all concerned whether you be man or beast.

You can go to far y'know.

This weeks picture of Tippy was taken a couple of years ago on the track to the farm. 

I'm going home with dad.

I'd been to get some hay for the sheep and met Vicki and the dogs on the way back. In her later years Tippy used to find the walk to the farm was far enough and if you wanted her to go further you had to put her on the lead because she would just root herself to the ground and either refuse to go further or turn tail and head for home. 

Who said I was to old to run, I'll beat that lot home.

You could shout her all you wanted but she would refuse to hear you. It was times like that when it was hard to remember that up until retiring she was a highly trained sheep dog. 

Come on, get the door open its freezing out here.

 She was always a dog that knew her own mind right from a puppy.

Dogs Are Good For Your Well-being.

'Studies have shown that patients who are in contact with dogs after hospital treatment or illness have a faster recovery time'.

Waiting by the car.

The above was taken from 'The Dog Lover's Bible' written by Malini Roy and my reason for including it in a memorial blog to Tippy is that at this time seven years ago I discovered that I was suffering from a serious life threatening illness. Whilst I'm not going to claim that it was Tippy alone who made me better, I don't even know if she had any effect at all in curing me but at the time Vicki was working nights at the nursing home and as any of you who have suffered from similar or had worrying things on your mind the dark hours are the worst. So it was a great comfort to me to be able to reach out and find Tippy there by my side. She never said a word nor asked for any but somehow you knew that she understood. During the process of getting better I needed to make lots of trips to the hospital, many on a daily basis and Tippy kept just about every appointment enduring many hours of patiently waiting quietly in the car for our return.