Every now and then one of our friends is in need of a puppy / dog sitting service. As we already have a small zoo, one more doesn’t make so much difference… most of the time.

Normally we get girls, but this time we were asked to look after a 6 month old Labrador male puppy called Barnie. His parents were off for their honeymoon and he needed a place to stay.

As Bunk is already 3 years old we were a little nervous about bringing a second male into the house. We arranged for the “audition” just to be sure that Bunk would accept a little one, as they had never met each other. So a week before their big trip we spent all Sunday together in our house so the dogs could met one another. The “first date” went fine, so we were confident that we can look after sweet Barnie until his parents returned home.

The day had come and Barnie was dropped off with all his toys, bed, food, treats etc… We so forgot how it is to have a pup in the house. At first Barnie was so scared. Poor little fellow didn’t know what hit him until it was too late… he was left in this strange house, with new dogs and cats and lots of new Big humans. It took him a whole day to get used to us. After 24h there was no more peeing in the house, no more accidents and no more crying.

Yes, of course he is a puppy so we had to hide all the shoes, as a few minutes of distraction and you had to collect them from the garden, we had to close up greenhouse as Barnie was very keen on helping with gardening by getting all the tools out; he even tried to sweep our decking with a huge broom 🙂

During Barnie’s stay with us he learnt how to:

• walk up and down the stairs
• get in and out of the car
• chase and fetch a ball
• play with other dogs

It was a fun 10 days. He is such a lovely boy. It wasn’t easy letting him go back home.

I would like to show you some highlights from Barnie’s stay with us.