28/08/2026
🐾 A Little Secret I've Been Keeping... 🐾
For the last few months I've been working on something a bit different.
For over 35 years I've lived and worked with dogs. For more than 20 years I've run a dog walking and training business. During that time I've collected enough stories to fill several lifetimes, some hilarious, some heartbreaking, some so ridiculous that if I hadn't lived through them myself I wouldn't believe them.
So when my son Eli bought me a diary for Christmas, I started writing.
What began as a bit of fun quickly turned into something much bigger. A diary-style memoir based on real events, real dogs, real people, and the wonderful chaos that somehow follows me around wherever I go.
Over the coming weeks I'm going to share the opening chapter with you.
You'll meet:
🐾 Alice, my scruffy black rescue dog who believes rules are optional.
🐾 Nicolas, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who is convinced the world is one loud noise away from disaster.
🐾 Shiva, my long-suffering German Shepherd who spends most of her life quietly judging everyone.
🐾 A collection of cats who are even less impressed with humanity.
🐾 A missing cockerpoo puppy.
🐾 My family.
🐾 My clients.
🐾 And more mud, chaos, coffee and canine nonsense than is probably healthy.
It's funny, occasionally emotional, and every story is based on things that genuinely happened.
I'd love to know what you think as the story unfolds.
Today's post is Christmas Day 2023, the day this diary begins.
Pull up a chair, grab a brew, and for the love of biscuits don't leave your sandwich unattended...
📖 Diary of a Dog Walker
Dear Diary,
Let’s get one thing clear before we go any further: people think being a dog walker is idyllic. “Your so lucky doing that!” They imagine me gliding across sunlit meadows, hair flowing in the breeze like a low-budget shampoo advert, surrounded by obedient dogs who trot along politely as birds sing in perfect harmony.
Reality?
Try 35 years of mud, 12 types of drizzle, and knowing exactly which dog has farted without even turning around.
I have spent more time ankle-deep in mysterious substances than most archaeologists. I can identify a suspicious stain at ten paces. I have shouted the words “Don’t p*e on his head” more often than I’ve said “I love you.” I have negotiated with everything from timid terriers to Labradors who believe personal space is just “a suggestion.”
I’ve been walking, training, rescuing, refereeing, emotionally supporting, and occasionally ducking flying objects from dogs who believe enthusiasm is a weapon. I’ve run a dog walking company for over 20 years, employing brave, optimistic humans who thought,
“How hard can it be?”
Two weeks later, they understand things. They’ve seen things. They’ve been changed.
Meanwhile, I personally take on the “special characters.”
You know the ones:
• The dog who thinks fences are optional.
• The dog who believes puddles are portals to another world.
• The dog who looks you dead in the eye as he steals someone’s picnic.
• The German Shepherd who is convinced the universe is a conspiracy and you are the only trustworthy witness.
Most days are delightfully predictable. Six bags of poo collected. Three mystery bags discovered in hedges (never mine, I swear).
One lead misplaced. One ball mourned. Every single creature wet. Myself included. Somehow I will still end up apologising to a stranger for “the incident,” even when the incident was 100% their fault and involved a squirrel initiating hostilities.
And yet…
There is always that one Labrador who decides today is the day he falls in love with a stranger’s mobility scooter. Or the spaniel who sprints heroically into the distance because he briefly mistook a plastic bag for a pheasant. Or the bulldog who flops down mid-walk because “his legs are decorative.”
This diary will chronicle events that truly happened — sometimes spread over years… sometimes crammed into one afternoon that aged me a full decade.
Expect:
• Romance (between dogs who DEFINITELY shouldn’t be romantically interested).
• Betrayal (mostly ball-related).
• Suspense (what is in their mouth?).
• Drama (someone is always “starving” despite just eating).
• Horror (fox poo).
• And enough mud to start my own pottery studio.
There will be thrills.
There will be chaos.
There will be sadness.
There will be suspenseful moments involving sausages.
And always — always — poo.
Welcome to the glamorous, high-octane life of a professional dog walker.
Fasten your seatbelt.
Grab a mop.
And for the love of biscuits, don’t leave your sandwich unattended.
It’s going to be a journey.
Monday 25th December 2023
Christmas! That magical day when the house smells like turkey, tension, and mince pies that look… untrustworthy. My 13 year old son Eli gifted me a diary, which is either beautifully thoughtful or his polite way of saying, “Mum, please document your disasters so we can study them later.”
Challenge accepted, child.
The household circus is in full swing.
Alice — our beautiful scruffy black mongrel — has perfected the art of looking like she’s silently judging everyone’s life choices.
Nicolas, our little Blenheim cavalier, is waging war on every bauble, pinecone, and festive ribbon like he’s defending the realm.
And Shiva, our battle hardened German Shepherd, couldn’t care less about Christmas décor but would absolutely commit tax fraud for leftover pigs in blankets.
Andy is “getting into the Christmas spirit,” which mostly means trying not to make eye contact in case I hand him a dog-related task.
The boys are thriving: Eli is feeling proud of his thoughtful (or shady) diary gift, and Bob is celebrating Christmas in the traditional pre teen fashion: intense grazing, zero eye contact, and hearing only sentences that start with “Dessert is ready.”
Christmas lunch was at Mum and Dad’s, joined by my brother Stan, his wife Althis, and their 12 year old son John.
And then there was the logistics issue.
My parents own Pudding.
Pudding the Yorkshire Terrier, who is roughly the size of a fluffy slipper… and has the attitude of a nightclub bouncer who’s just spotted someone wearing trainers.
Pudding does not like dogs.
Or cats.
Or footsteps.
Or joy.
And he definitely does NOT like Christmas.
Thus, our entire zoo stayed home — which meant we attempted a normal family lunch at my parents’ house, then drove home to reunite with the animal kingdom.
Walking back through the door was like stepping into a reunion tour no one asked for.
Alice reacted like I’d been lost at sea for 14 years.
Nicolas behaved as though we had abandoned him, betrayed him, and possibly sold his toys.
Shiva gave me a calm, dignified German Shepherd stare that translated to:
“Hm. So you left. Bold choice.”
The cats, of course, didn’t give a single festive fig.
Blossom, my beautiful ragdoll, blinked politely — like a Victorian aunt with moderate disappointment.
Mortimer, my male black mainecoon, sauntered over at the sp*ed of a glacier.
Ursie, my supersized, female tabby mainecoon, stared at us all with the energy of a grumpy landlord whose tenants have missed rent… again.
And as I stood there, surrounded by fur, whiskers, and betrayal, I realised something important:
Christmas in a six animal household is exactly the same as every other day.
Someone is hungry.
Someone is judging me.
Someone is plotting food theft.
And at least one creature — statistically speaking — is preparing to poo.
Merry Christmas to us all.
Today I’m grateful for: My wonderfully chaotic family, six ridiculous animals, plenty of laughter, and the fact that somehow we all made it through Christmas without needing a divorce, a vet or the police.
Tuesday 26th December 2023
Boxing Day.
The traditional British day of rest.
In theory.
In Yorkshire, however, “rest” is mostly a myth told to children and southern softies.
Now, Andy and I work six or seven days a week most of the year.
I run the dog walking and training business and work as a dog walker mentor and Andy’s a landscape gardener and builder.
Between us, we’ve spent more time ankle deep in mud than most bog snorkelling champions.
So Boxing Day had one sensible Yorkshire objective:
Do nowt.
No alarms.
No vans.
No muddy boots.
No Labradors dragging us across the fields like they’re training for the Tour de France.
A peaceful day at home.
Lovely.
This lasted approximately fourteen minutes.
The animals, having experienced the luxury of us being home all day yesterday, had come to a firm conclusion:
“Right. Staff’s in. Back to work.”
Alice began by nicking something off the kitchen side.
No one knows what it was — not even her.
She just grabbed it with the swagger of a seasoned burglar and legged it to the living room to eat it in secrecy.
Nicolas barked at the telly.
(We’ll never know why. Even he doesn’t know why.)
Shiva sat in the middle of the kitchen, observing everything with the calm disappointment of a Yorkshire pensioner watching a southern driver attempt a three point turn.
The cats had clearly held a committee meeting overnight.
Blossom drifted around like a fluffy ghost haunting a bungalow.
Mortimer followed Andy like a hairy auditor inspecting his life choices.
And Ursie… Ursie sat on the kitchen counter like an eight kilo gargoyle judging us for breathing.
Andy made coffee.
Alice tried to steal his toast.
Nicolas barked because Alice was stealing the toast.
Shiva ate the toast while everyone else was arguing about the toast.
Bob was constructing something complicated that involved plastic bits and muttering.
Eli was narrating the chaos like David Attenborough:
“Here, we observe the British family in its natural habitat… losing control.”
At one point, Andy looked around the kitchen — dogs circling, cats supervising, kids negotiating biscuits — and said:
“I thought today were meant to be relaxing.”
At that exact moment:
• Nicolas started barking at the door.
• Alice started barking at Nicolas.
• Mortimer gracefully swept a spoon off the counter.
• Ursie strutted across Andy’s freshly buttered toast like she owned the place.
• And Shiva let out a German Shepherd sigh so dramatic it could’ve cracked windows.
Honestly, she was the wisest one in the room.
Because after 35 years with animals, here’s the truth:
When you live with dogs and cats, rest is nowt but a rumour.
________________________________________
After lunch we were attempting proper Yorkshire relaxing: wrapped in blankets, watching Christmas telly, scrolling Facebook like disgruntled burritos.
Then I saw it.
A post from one of my clients.
Her sister’s 12 week old cockerpoo puppy had gone missing.
And not somewhere far away.
Oh no.
They live across the fields from us, Halifax is full of fields, trees, hills and mud.
Which upgrades the situation from “sad Facebook post” to
“Right. Boots on. We’re off.”
I looked up.
The dogs looked up.
You know when you accidentally say the word walk and suddenly every dog within a three mile radius materialises like you’ve summoned them with a spell?
Yeah. That.
Within seconds I’m surrounded by dogs vibrating with excitement like someone’s just dropped a sausage roll.
________________________________________
So off we go. Across t’fields.
The landscape was peak Boxing Day Yorkshire:
• Mud.
• Wind.
• Random bits of wrapping paper swirling round like festive tumbleweed.
A 12 week old cockerpoo, being the size of a slipper and the density of a cloud, is basically impossible to find in a field.
It’s like trying to spot a marshmallow in a snowstorm.
But we were committed.
The dogs got straight to work with their usual investigative methods:
• Sniffing sheep poo
• Running in circles
• Having strong opinions about pheasants
Shiva, for about thirty seconds, acted like a fully qualified search dog.
Then she caught the scent of something approximately 153 years old and vanished into a hedge like a Victorian detective.
Nicky trotted along beside me with the expression of a tiny Yorkshire lord who is deeply unimpressed with outdoor life.
He looked like he wanted central heating and a biscuit, not a search mission.
Field one: nothing.
Field two: still nothing.
My hair now resembled a startled scarecrow.
We shouted the puppy’s name — Teddy, obviously.
Every cockerpoo is either called Teddy or Alfie or something that sounds like they wrote poetry by candlelight in 1892.
“TEEEEDDDYYYY!”
Echo.
Horses staring.
A crow giving us side eye.
Still no puppy.
At the hedge line, Shiva suddenly froze.
The moment.
The drama.
The destiny.
She launched into the hedge like a furry torpedo.
Leaves everywhere.
Branches shaking.
Movement!
I sprinted over thinking she’d heroically found the puppy.
She emerged proudly carrying…
a very old tennis ball, last used sometime during the 1998 Wimbledon warm ups.
She was thrilled with herself.
Nicky looked ashamed of us all.
We searched more fields.
I performed one graceful (ish) downhill slide.
The dogs acted like this was the best day of their lives.
Eventually the daylight faded.
Still no sign of Teddy the Tiny Escape Artist.
So we trudged home: cold, muddy, windswept, and smelling vaguely of despair.
The dogs collapsed dramatically.
Shiva curled up with her antique tennis ball.
Nicky claimed the warmest spot like a little Yorkshire king returning to his throne.
And I checked Facebook again.
Because in the modern age, missing puppy missions are monitored via muddy volunteers and social media updates.
Today I’m grateful for: Warm boots, good neighbours, and the fact that Teddy is still out there giving an entire village something to hope for.
