Time for more dogs

We lost Bertie, our beautiful but grumpy little King Charles spaniel three years ago. He made it with us up to the island and settled in with us to the caravan whilst we built the house, but he was thirteen years old and getting frail. When he died we buried him on a quiet part of the Croft.

I still miss him. His energy, his insatiable desire for food, his big brown eyes (usually turned on you in a pleading expression for snacks!) his perpetually wagging tail. Dogs are such characters, such companions and we loved Bertie so much. It was hard to lose him.

We’ve been kept busy since building the house, fencing the croft and a thousand other things, but we’re starting to think that it’s time again for dogs. What the cats will think of that is another matter, but we feel that it’s time.

We initially thought of a rescue dog, but I’ve had experience of rescue dogs with severe behavioural problems because of what humans have done to them, and heartbreaking as that is I’m not sure that we would cope well if that happened at our time of life.

I’ve been looking carefully at different breeds and their characteristics. Most of our local friends have dogs too, which has been interesting to observe and has refined our wish list.

We want a dog that’s not too big, not too small, doesn’t bark a lot, with a happy nature rather than being manic or crazy, intelligent and easy to train, and that needs a moderate amount of daily exercise rather than four solid hours of walking a day. One that likes the water, as being close to the sea I can’t imagine one that wouldn’t like to swim. One that’s hardy and can cope with the cold, wet weather that we have up here at 57°N.

There is no such thing as the perfect dog as everyone has different ideas of what constitutes perfect based on their lifestyle and preferences. Most folk here have border collies which are lovely dogs, but they’re extremely energetic working dogs requiring more exercise than we could comfortably commit to.

I was watching a YouTube video some months ago of a couple in Norway and in that there was a beautiful dog bounding around in the snow. It was a Finnish Lapphund, a dog that the Sami people use for herding reindeer.

I was quite smitten.

Research showed that this is a medium size dog, generally very healthy, not too barky, loves people and would make a terrible guard dog as a consequence, with average exercise needs, a thick double coat that sheds twice a year, loves the cold and wet, and loves to swim. It has a smiley face and is very intelligent.

I’ve queried some owners forums about how their dogs cope with ticks, which are prevalent here, and discovered that the nordics are rife with them too and that they cope well.

We have identified a couple of good breeders in Scotland and are hopeful to get onto a waiting list for a puppy soon. We’ve been advised that even if we’d like two dogs that it’s better for training purposes to have a years gap between the dogs to help them bond with the family and so that the older the two can help with training the younger.