Yancy’s new young companion has arrived in Barry…
Jasmin is her name. She is a labrador retriever cross like Yancy, but when the man emerged from the back of the Guide Dogs van with her in Morrison’s car park (I kid you not, that’s where I met them), he was carrying a beautiful brindled puppy in his arms.
She is just under eight weeks old and looks like her paws, cheeks, chest and derriere have been dipped in gold. She is a beauty.
Yancy and she are getting on famously. The days since her arrival have been filled with canine capers, toy tussles and general mischief from both of them.
They will only be together for two weeks before Yancy goes back up to Forfar (sob). Sadly I suspect it will be just long enough for them to become the best of pals before they are separated.
Our supervisor Wendy said having a short crossover was sometimes a good thing for the new pup coming in to a strange new world. She is right (Wendy is always right!).
It also helps soften the blow to all of us from handing back our first puppy charge. I asked Wendy if she thought Yancy would make it to become a Guide Dog (only around half do) and she said yes. We really hope so.
Her successor is a real character. She certainly hasn’t been fazed by taking up with the MacCallums.
She eats like a horse — no I don’t mean from a nose-bag. I think she still thinks her fellow puppies will appear to eat from her bowl so the whole meal thing is a fairly frantic business at the moment.
But she’s doing really well with doing her business on command for one so small. We are really impressed.
And the other day, which was only day three since her arrival, I took her along to Tesco in Monifieth to get a few bits of shopping. I fully expected to carry her round but, to my astonishment, she happily trotted up and down the aisles on her lead, never having been on it before. I really couldn’t believe how relaxed she was. We caused quite a stir, as you can imagine…the store rang to the sound of “aaawwws!”
So we have just over another week of two dogs. This means next week Katharine and I will take them both to the monthly get-together at Broughty Ferry which should be fun. I’ll keep you posted!
And meantime, we steel ourselves for the great Yancy farewell.
We will miss her…and so will Jasmin.