Deciding To Get Involved

Three months ago, I quit my job of 9 years. A job that I had held since leaving school.

It felt like time for a change. I was not enjoying working an office job and decided that despite not having much money, I would take the plunge and start my own business. So my husband & I went into partnership and created a smallholding. The main activity is poultry breeding together with selling produce and building animal enclosures.

Since we now work from home, we find that caring for the animals does not take up all of our time and we would now have the luxury of being able to get involved in something that was not business related.

We would very much like to have a dog to join our family but the problem is, we have a horse and a number of pygmy goats so feel at the limits of what we can commit to as far as vet and feed bills go.
Therefore, puppy walking seems perfect for us because the costs are covered by whichever organisation owns the pup.

Most people seem to think that either the hardest thing about it, or the reason they could not do it, is giving back the pup once ready for it's formal training. For us however, we have had animals on breeding loan before which gave us experience of caring for animals that could be taken back at any time PLUS we have bred a huge variety of different animal species for years and of course, homing the young animals teaches you how to be detached.

We felt that we might fit the bill and tick all the boxes because we do not have any dogs or cats, we have enclosed gardens, our son is young but quiet and respectful of animals, our house backs onto a common where pup would be able to meet many dogs and we live nearby plenty of opportunities for pup to have new experiences.

So after mulling all of the above over for months and months, last Friday, October 14th, something spurred me into action and I sent emailed out to the Guide Dog Association, a disabled service dog charity, West Midlands and Staffordshire police offering our services. I then trawled the net for information and gleaned as much info as I could from comments and posts made in various websites by other puppy walkers.

Then I waited.