Moyle Family Dogs

Over the years my family has had numerous dogs including breeds like German Shepherds plus cross breed's, mongrels & black labradors, etc. There's been a variation in names too which have included Rosie, Duke, Monty and Pepper. One of the dogs that my parent's owned was called Rosie and lived with my parents, but while they were away she ended up having to stay at my nans house and when they returned home my nan told them that she was in season. After asking numerous times when they could have her back the response was always the same, she's in season. It was clear to them that they weren't gonna be getting her back and that nan was gonna be keeping her. Unfortunately one day Rosie's time came even though she was young too, from memory I was told she sadly crawled underneath the table at nans and sadly passed away.

My nan and grandad still liked having a dog around the house and after the sad passing of Rosie they decided to buy a black labrador puppy and called her Pepper. She was to be the final dog that my grandfather would own and despite a few negatives at first with the dog when it came to training the dog he would always get the dog into the boot of the Proton every day and then take her down to the Lakeside Miniature Railway and once there walk her along the trackbed to the first bridge before turning around and heading back to the car. On some occasions when I was staying at my grandparents for the weekend I would go down with him to walk the dog. This was to be an everyday thing until my grandfather's health began to deteriorate and he ended up in hospital needing surgery. Although he would recover after release and then be able to take the dog out again he had to cut back on how often he could take Pepper out and he eventually even had to stop driving. Eventually it came to the point where he couldn't take the dog out anymore and unfortunately he eventually ended up having to go into a nursing home. He passed away on Thu 11th January 2007 (2 days before my 13th birthday on Sat 13th January). Following which the job of walking the dog was passed down to nan but unfortunately her age eventually meant she couldn't walk far anymore so it wasn't possible to walk the dog unless my father or mother could go round to do it.

For one of my younger brother's birthday's he asked if he could have a dog as a birthday present (the one in the photograph to left). The dog in question was a black cross breed, part collie and part alsatian. Her original name when she was purchased from the RSPCA was Princess but my brother decided to rename her Tess (the name coming from a teddy bear character in the TV series Noddy). Alongside the normal walks around the block aswell as to the park down the road she would also be taken on walks to the pinewoods in Ainsdale. In the early days when Pepper was still around we would take both dogs with us to the pinewoods for a good long walk and also down onto the beach. Unfortunately the duo eventually became a single as Pepper was later diagnosed with cancer which over time became worse and following a visit to the vet who confirmed that she was suffering and in pain it was decided that it was for the best that Pepper got given the needle and was put down, that way the poor old girl wouldn't be suffering anymore.:( Officially the loss of Pepper meant that the last dog owned by my grandfather had now passed away. As a result with the loss of Pepper and as grandad had passed away a few years earlier it meant that my nan was now living on her own. Eventually a few years later she said that she wanted to get another dog, unfortunately for her my father told her that she was too old to get a new dog as by this time she was in her 70's and that if she did get one she wouldn't be able to take it out for long walks and that it wouldn't be fair on the dog if it was a young one and it ended up spending most of it's life stuck inside and only able to walk a short distance up and down the side entry of the house. Even I was backing up my father with this one as it wouldn't be fair on the dog as who would be there to walk it.

My nan however wasn't going to back down and listen to her son (my father) as she was still going to get a new dog despite what everyone else said. She quietly brought it up with me that she wanted to go down to the RSPCA shelter and have a look at some of the dogs that they had, I was still against this idea about her having a new dog as she was over 70 by now. But after a bit of bribing with money I agreed under the condition that I chose what it was and that she was to not say a word on that she'd paid me to agree as my father would've killed me. So without drawing too much suspition I went down to the RSPCA shelter with my nan to see what type of dog she wanted. Eventually we settled on a year old black labrador (picture on right), like Tess she was a rescue dog and had a different name when we first met her. Her first name when we met her was Shadow but again we decided to give her a new one, my nan however decided that although the dog would be living with her she let me choose the dogs new name. Our other dog Tess looked almost similar to Tramp from the 1955 Disney film "Lady and the Tramp" so I thought if we've got a dog that looks like Tramp, although she's not an American Cocker Spaniel like that one in the film lets name her Lady. My father wasn't pleased that nan had ignored him and had got a dog but was pleased to see that I was looking after Lady as every day after getting back from Lakeside College I would get in the car and go over to my nans house and walk Lady over the footbridge opposite the bacon factory and then go back over Rose Hill & on other occasions down Kensington Road towards Derby Road and then go back via Sussex Road OR over the footbridge and along Virginia Street where the old Chewits factory was.

There were a few issues that would crop up though, the poor thing hadn't been house trained properly by it's first owner and without warning during the night she would either piss or s**t in the house. Although she wasn't a problem for me when it came to looking after Lady as at the time I was a teenager, my nan struggled with her as it was a young dog. Eventually my nan decided that she'd had enough of Lady's behaviour and was deciding to send her back to the RSPCA, my father was taking her side but I was having none of it. I told them that I came down here everyday after college and even during weekends to walk her aswell as makesure she got played with, I told them that there was no way she was going to be sent back. If we could train Tess to be house trained then surely we could train Lady to be house trained too, so as a result we took Lady away from nans and back to our own home to live alongside Tess. Despite my mothers objections over the whole thing by saying that one dog was enough, given a bit of time we had Lady behaving properly and decided that as nan couldn't look after her as she was too old to look after dogs now Lady would stay with us (a little bit of revenge since she took Rosie from us we'd taken Lady off her). We also discovered that with Lady her previous owner had mistreated her and beaten her up as she had got a limp in one of her legs which would be noticeable if she was walked too far.

As of 2022 both Tess and Lady are still living with us but Tess is now begining to get on age wise as she's around 14 now. Sadly earlier in the year she got an eye infection and despite having her wear the cone of shame to try and stop her from scratching her face, and also give her medication alongside drops for her eyes, she ended up loosing her eyesight and is sadly now blind. We recon that this year is also most likely going to be her last full one as it's unlikely that she has very long left. Whenever she's taken out for walks now she can no longer be let off the leed incase she ends up getting lost & night walks with her are an absolute no no now. She also now permanently has to have a collar around her neck as that way it's easy for us to guide her back out from area's if she got stuck. Most of the time when she's not walking around the house and walking into stuff which is just horrible to see she's spending a large amount of it sleeping. She's been a fantastic dog and we'll always remember the good times we've had with her when she was younger plus enjoy what time she has left.

As for the nutcase known as Lady she still runs around like a headless chicken and while is naughty at times and has very recently begun growling at poor Tess whenever she gets too close to Lady, most likely it's her way of telling Tess that she's there and needs to back off. For a dog that my parents weren't too happy about having over 10 years ago and should have been sent back to the RSPCA, they wouldn't part with her as she's a member of the family now and that I did the right thing in stopping them from sending her back. While her original owner in the family who purchased her might have passed away last year she is like her ancestor Pepper.

What dogs have you had over the years or what dogs are your favourite.

Stay tuned for future posts

Mr Moyle