When Tess Met Wilby or He's My Bruvver

When we collected Tess her breeder suggested we might like to be put in touch by email with the other new owners. I loved the idea but for whatever reason not everyone wanted to join in. Maybe they had busier lives or plenty of canine experience but I did strike up a new friendship with Wilbys owners and what a lifesaver that proved to be! Maybe it’s because we share the same name (and as we later found out, similar outlooks) or just because we both love to ‘chat’ but we started sharing stories almost immediately. As I’ve already said those early weeks were somewhat difficult at times. Tess is our first Welsh Springer Spaniel and we really were learning day by day so to have someone who was going through the same experiences, mostly frustrating ones, is what kept me sane. We were soon chatting everyday and both puppies were equally challenging to say the least! As soon as one did something naughty the other matched it! Could it be telepathy we wondered!! But often when one of us was having a particularly bad day the other had a puppy that was behaving (well almost!) and we could give each other support and hope!!

Such was our new friendship we finally decided our puppies should meet. Would they recognise each other – would they even like each other?

We live opposite sides of the M25 so we had to pick a suitable meeting place. As Tess hadn’t done any long journeys and Wilby was well travelled we decided to meet at our house. The day dawned and it was a particularly hot one. Good – the pups could meet in the garden. No harm could be done as Tess had already wrecked it – Welsh Springer Spaniels love to garden! We waited excitedly for our new friends to arrive – I just knew from our emails that we would all get on but would the pups? No worries there! They went completely mad, racing round and round the garden and play fighting. Definitely sibling love!

We went off to our favourite walking spot, The Magog Downs, in the hope of wearing them out. No such luck! The excitement carried on all day but it was a huge success both for dogs and owners so we couldn’t wait to do it all over again! So much so, that we repeated the experience in November to celebrate their first birthday. This time it was our turn to do the journey and Tess was a dream, sleeping nearly all the way, only this time we had completely different weather – wet and muddy making our walk interesting. I swear the Welsh Springer Spaniel loves to be as dirty as possible. Pass a muddy puddle and they're in there!

Tess and Wilby obviously adore each other and we are convinced they know they are brother and sister so we had another successful day. Good food and company, plus a bottle of bubbly to celebrate making it through the first year amid tears and laughter, helped.

And the icing on the cake was exchanging birthday presents and treating our pups to their very own birthday cakes, made by Wilby’s mum, out of giant boneos, cheesey icing and doggy choc drops. Yummy! Who says our dogs are spoilt!

After such a busy day we ended up with two very sleepy little bundles and grown ups already planning the next adventure.
Watch this space…………………………..