Lily - Our Tibetan Terrier and Our Chickens

We sadly lost our rescue dog Tom at only 5 years old in June 2013. When Tom passed I didn't want to think about getting another dog, but as the weeks went by I thought about it more and more and knew if i was to have another dog, it couldn't be a the same bread as replacement and it would have to be a girl dog to be completely different.

On a walk one day I said to Nicholas I'd like a puppy and I'd like to call it Lily. I don’t know where it came from, it just seemed to pop into my head and that was that. We started to look on rescue sites for a girl pup that we knew wouldn't grow too big, but to no avail.

We had been looking after a friends Tibetan Terrier for a week which was lovely for us, we are familiar with the breed of Tibetan Terriers and wondered if the bread would be good for us. We looked online and amazingly found a lovely family who recently had just had a litter of puppies in South Wales. Their dogs are family pets but Linda also took them to shows and amazingly they had three pups left, two boys and one girl. I saw a photo of the girl, her registered name was Blue Velvet, she looked gorgeous so we visited.

Upon arrival the lady got all the puppies out of their pen one by one, they were all clean and fluffy as they had just had their first bath!  She told us they all had registered names, but her grandchildren had given them pet names, one was called Chico, one was called Messy, one was called Van Percy…..and my one was called Lily….

I did actually think I had miss heard Linda, the owner, at first and I kind of looked at Nicholas as if to say…did she just say Lily?? After a while cuddling all of the pups who were running everywhere, playing, rolling around, wanting to be cuddled, I double checked with the lady. The one I had come to see, she is called Lily? Yes said Linda, my granddaughter named her. I cant get over the coincidence and I felt it was meant to be! Scroll down to see lots of photos of Lily and also to see our Chickens below too!

Lily's Funny Moments

Lily has many comical moments in the day, she is always making us laugh. We try to take photos of her when funny things happen, like when she has been routing in the snow and come sin covered, or when she has had a bath and is having a bad hair day! We hope these photos make you smile as much as they do for us.

 

Lily's Rosettes

When Lily was younger we took her to dog training for a number of years and we were able to do all of the Good Citizens gold, silver and bronze tests along with some within the dog club too. She is very proud of her certificates and rosettes as you can see :)

 

Lily as a puppy

These photos were taken on the first few days with us at eight weeks old. She was tiny when she arrived. A little bundle of joy. She was quite nervous as of course she had been taken from her safe environment with her mum and siblings, but she soon started to follow me around. She sat between my furry slipper boots while I was at the kitchen sink and Nicholas snapped such a comical photo of her. Then we both cuddled on the sofa and she took a nap. Its so tiring being a puppy!

 

Our Chickens

We have had chickens in our cottage garden ever since we moved in. As you have seen in the photo of Lily above she was sniffing our Buff Orpington rooster and hens. Sadly they have all gone now, leaving one old lady still with us. So we hatched some chicks in an incubator in our kitchen in October 2020! As you can see from the photos they grew very fast!

The two white chicks turned out to be hens and the brown were roosters. We gave the roosters away and are now left with our trio of hens in our garden. They white hens where half grown in the photos below.

Now they are fully grown and about to start laying. Snowy, pictured below has quite a character and Honey, which you can see in the photo below wither the two together is extremely friendly. They both are and run to see us when ever we are in the garden. I will add more photos as the spring and summer unfolds.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our chickens and our dog Lily and smiled at the photos. I will try to update the page soon with new photos, so come back soon!

Our Rescue Cats

We have rescued a number of cats over the years - or should I say they seem to have found us! Our first rescue cat was called Merly. The saying comes to mind - 'Only a mother would love him..' and this could have been said for our Merly. Not many people would have taken him on. He must have been knocked by a car many years previous as his hip had been broken and set awkwardly as it was all out of place as you can see in the photo below right. He could walk, but quite oddly. His ear, as you can see was scraped, possibly at the time of the accident. He had very few teeth, he was thin due to various issues.

With regular check ups at the vet, we neutered him and gave him tablets for a poorly functioning kidney. His life was much improved in the three years he was with us. He was the most lovely and happy cat I have ever met and I think he couldn't believe his luck that he had finally a loving and comfortable home. He loved to be cuddled, he would lay upside down in my arms and sleep for a long time, I think it was comfortable for him after all of his injuries. We will always miss Merly, he was a very special cat.

Our next rescue cat was a beautiful and very pretty cat called Ammy. Full name Amram after Nick s Cornish smuggling ancestor. We always knew there was something wrong with Ammy, he had underlying issues from the time he came to us, however to look at him above you would never have known.

He had internal ear growths which never fully cleared even with antibiotics and special cream. He also had a condition which effected his heart, and created fluid in his body cavity and around his heart. He was put on tablets, fluid drained a few times, ears cleaned and in general we just looked after him and did everything we could for him.

He spent the last 4 years of his life with us and was only around 8 when he passed away. Ammy was a very happy cat, and we kept him as comfortable as we could in the final few months of his life. We miss him very much.

Finally I had to include the photo of my favourite cat when I was growing up. She was called Little Cat as we rescued her as a tiny kitten, much smaller than she should ever have left her mum. She never grew really big and was smaller than our other cats, hence her nickname Little Cat. However even though she was small, she was robust and out lived all of our other cats! She passed away at the age of 23. She was a good mouser too. The last 8 years or so of her life she preferred the comfort of her warm bed by the fire and was very spoilt. As a memorial, I painted her for my parents and the portrait is hanging in their hallway to this day.