Bluebell

May 2007

Dear Diary
I’m so excited. Tomorrow my family becomes complete when our little bitch, Tinkerbell joins us. Only one more sleep to go.

Little did I know when I wrote those words that the word bitch would describe more than her gender.

Introduction

My love affair with Weimaraners started in December 2003 when we adopted Bluebell. We were so unprepared for the very steep learning curve Bluebell would put us on. Blue was a 20 month old full on, over weight, adolescent male Weimaraner. He had the bouncyness of Tigger, the energy of a dynamo and very ineffective hearing. He didn’t have a hearing impairment, just an unwillingness to listen to anything we asked him to do. He would bark at other dogs, steal their toys, steal their food, lunge at them and on the whole he could be a pretty obnoxious character. But we loved and adored him from day one. We saw through his faults, which is a good job as there were lots of them. To us he was a huge bundle of fun with a never ceasing zest for life, he was also the cuddliest bundle of love I’d ever met.

I’m ashamed to say we even got expelled from our training class. As a doggy parent for the first time I wanted to do the very best for my boy so I immediately enrolled ourselves into doggy training classes. The trainer seemed credible enough and told me she only used positive reinforcement training methods. Meaning the dog does the right thing he gets a reward, the only ‘punishment’ for the wrong thing was being ignored. The training classes were run in a draughty local village hall and it was packed with dogs. There were two sessions held back to back and there was only a very tiny entrance area for the dogs and owners to wait. It was impossible for the dogs not to come almost nose to nose with each other on the way in or out of classes.

On the first day of training I arrived extra early. I was keen to get started and knowing my dog was 45kilos of high powered energy and excitement I wanted him to familiarise himself with his environment before we actually got down to training. Despite arriving early he still barked his head off and tried to lunge at other dogs when they arrived for the class. I tried to distract him with treats but my scavenger dog suddenly decided he wanted to diet. The trainer came out and gave me a stern telling off and told me to keep my dog under control. I felt like I was five years old again and being told off by the head mistress. I also felt like replying that ‘if I could keep my dog under control then I wouldn’t need to attend beginners training classes would it?’ but I didn’t think that would have gone down too well so I kept my mouth shut. It quickly degenerated from there.

The hall was so packed with dogs and people it was impossible to sit more than a foot away from another dog. I tried to sit as far away from the others as I could but sods law that on the day I wanted to be alone everyone wanted to be friends. Luckily by this time Bluebell had forgotten about his diet and could be distracted by treats. That was until a yappy little terrier dog stole his sausage and all hell broke lose. Fearing for the little dogs life and that my shoulder may dislocate I discreetly moved as far away from the little dog as possible. This plan worked until another small, this time fluffy, yappy thing came late into the class and instantly took a dislike to Bluebell. He saw Bluebell and immediately started barking his head off and would not shut up. It was at this point that Bluebell decided he was back on the diet and could not be distracted by treats. As there was no where else for me to go other than out the door the newcomer had to walk over to the other side of the room, grumbling something about the dangerous dogs act as she went. Somehow we managed to get to the end of the class. Thankfully Bluebell was way beyond the very basic, sit, down, stay commands we were being taught at this stage and performed these tasks with a smug grin. At the end of the class the trainer asked me to stay behind after all the others had left. Despite actually outperforming all the other dogs I somehow knew she did want to see me to give us a certificate for coming top of the class. In a nutshell she told me that I had an out of control, vicious and dangerous dog and that if we wanted to continue with the classes I would have to muzzle him. There was no helpful advice about how to harness this pent up energy in a constructive way or comforting words about his obedience once focused; just another telling off. I left the class on the verge of tears. By the time we got home I was distraught. I felt I’d let Bluebell down and left myself down. I’d always wanted a dog and had to wait until I was in my thirties to finally get one. To learn I was crap at it was heartbreaking. Luckily my husband isn’t so soft. He gave me a straight talking too about how far we’d already come with Blue and that the trainer was just a silly old bag who knows nothing about Weimaraners and I should ignore her. Confidence restored we put our heart and soul into training Bluebell and was repaid a thousand fold.

Blue bell has been with us three years and is a now a clam middle aged gentleman. He’s a different dog to the Tiggerdog we rescued three years earlier. His daily routine now looks something like this.

Alarm goes off – Jump on the bed and have a snuggle with the humans.
Humans get up – Out for a wee and then onto breakfast.
Humans do human stuff – Lie on the sofa and snooze.
Around midday – Out for a potter in the woods, chase the odd rabbit, eat the odd cow pat.
Post walk – Time for another snooze. I’m not getting any younger you know.
Human comes home from work – bring her a cushion, get some fuss, have my tea.
After tea – Time for another snooze I think.
Bedtime – One last snoozy snuggle with the humans and then it’s time for bed a proper sleep.

With Blue bell being so perfect now, and I’m ashamed to admit, a little boring…it just seemed the right time to complete our family.




It all started with an innocent chat with my friend Cathy. Cathy was asked me if we’d ever considered getting another dog. I said we had but our wish list would be so specific we’d never find a dog to fit the bill.

We’d need a girl of course; it wouldn’t be fair to bring another boy into the house. This girl would need to be quite a bit younger than Bluebell as I wouldn’t want anyone threatening his place in the pack. Having said that she needed to be younger, I wouldn’t want one too young. I couldn’t face sleepless nights and toilet training. Little did I know about the sleepless nights... I’d want one with a huge personality, Bluebell is middle aged now, I think it’d do us all good to have a dog that one bring some excitement into our lives. I’d want a really snugly dog. Bluebell is still very affectionate but doesn’t sit on you and squash you as much. As he’s got older he seems to get very hot very quickly and now often prefers the cool wooden floor to sitting on the sofa with us. Oh and in my ideal world she’d also play fetch. I’ve always wanted a dog that plays fetch. Bluebell will bring a ball back but thinks it’s much more fun to then run off with it so you have to chase him to get the ball back.

I should have mentioned that Cathy works for a dog re-homing charity. As her next words were ‘I think I’ve found the perfect dog for you’.

Cathy explained that a young Weimaraner bitch had come into the rehoming centre were she works. She told me the dog had a wonderful temperament but was severely overweight due to lack of exercise and lacked basic training. She told me that she had been handed in as her owner just didn’t have the time she needed and she was locked in her cage for up to 8 hours a day. She even plays fetch she told me. I was smitten but also stunned. How the hell do I tell Kevin?

The ‘how do I tell Kevin’? question turned out to be quite easy in the end. We made a deal. I get another dog and he gets an Xbox. Simple.

With that little problem dealt with all I had to do was sort out getting her up here. My friends rehoming centre is on the south coast, we live in the North. In the end we agreed to meet at a mutual friends in the midlands.