Karen Hunton

Karen Hunton on the good- and naughty - sides of owning a dog

Ten o’clock in the evening and it is still warm enough and with sufficient daylight left to type outside in the garden. Birds are chattering their goodnights in the trees down by the beck but apart from that, all is still.

Spring is a wonderful time of year. Longer days, lighter nights, new life in the garden, new life at the farm, in fact new life everywhere … but it can have its drawbacks too.

Since March last year, it has been reported by the Pet Food Manufacturers Association that a total of 3.2 million households have acquired a pet. This in turn means that puppy sales have soared, with prices reaching an unprecedented high. Undoubtedly for many people lockdown was a boring and lonely time and for many families, with parents furloughed or working from home, lockdown might have seemed like the ideal time to buy a puppy. Now, even though restrictions are beginning to ease, puppy sale

AT the end of this month Jamie will have been with me for a whole year so I feel that a celebration is in order. He arrived on the last day of February 2020 which, being a leap year, was Saturday the 29th. So this year his ‘Happy Gotcha Day’ will have to be celebrated on the 28th. Doing a little on-line research I was surprised to discover that a ‘Gotcha Day’ is actually a real celebration – so we shall definitely be having one at our spot!

For this month’s Paws for Thought, KAREN HUNTON, settles into a new job at the vets

SO summer has come to an end and the time for Marmite and crumpets is upon us. Sam tortoise has gone into hibernation, and at the farm the horses are in for winter.

WELL this has been an exciting and exhausting week for both Jamie and myself. Exciting for me as I have returned to work for the first time since lockdown in March and exciting, if not a little scary, for Jamie as he has a new lunch-time dog walker.

LAST Saturday I lost Brigadier, my best friend and companion for the last 12 years. He has left a huge, Brig-shaped hole in my life and in my heart, but this is not going to be a sad read because Brig never was, despite at times having more than his fair share of bad luck. Whatever life threw at him, Brig always bounced back with a waggy tail and a nose keen to sniff out those treats.

In this month’s Paws for Thought, KAREN HUNTON remembers the Jennifers in her life