Well my high hopes for 2018 haven't got off to the best start but I'll continue to wish you all a happy new year. Firstly my six month old phone has gone to a watery grave somewhere out towards France, my two year old blaster has blown up, I've contracted a stinking rotten cold and now I've discovered one of my van tyres has a slow puncture. So Year Of The Dog pull yourself together, stop behaving like a flea ridden mongrel street dog and start behaving like a Crufts contender! My mantra for the last week has been "there's always somebody worse off than you" but seriously, whoever is sticking ...

So this is my last blog for the year. I can't quite believe I'm saying that, but before I go and drown myself in a bath of Prosecco, a few words to reflect on 2017. We have had lots of ups and a few downs. Lots of new visitors to the grooming room, some new members join the walking pack, said a few sad goodbyes to old friends, a flashy new website, blogs, Twitter, the Muddy Dog Challenge, and so on. I'm exhausted just looking back on it all. There are lots of new things to look foward to next year, well you know they say that a change is as good as a rest? Talking of rest, I am hanging up the ...

Hello everyone! I haven't written a blog for a little while, as as the title of this one suggests, it is an extremely busy time of the year, and what we call in the Grooming World "crazy time". November and December are the most profitable but the most dreaded months of the year by Groomers. The time when you're trying to squeeze half a year's worth of appointments into two months. The worst is the calls from people whose dog you last groomed in February now calling to have Fluffy nice for Christmas and being disappointed and surprised when you can't fit...

It doesn't seem possible that Halloween has been and gone for another year. It feels like only a couple of weeks ago I was talking about being too hot to walk the dogs. Halloween does seem to be getting bigger and bigger each year. We had more Trick or Treaters this year and people are really making the effort with their costumes and decorating their houses. I don't remember ever going Trick or Treating as a child......I blame the Americans as they've always been massively into it and their influence has obviously come over here. It's lovely that the kids can do this now though and the hounds ...

As it's been a couple of weeks again since I last blogged, I'll start with most recent events and work backwards. Last Saturday alarm call at 5am. The hounds were none too impressed at having their breakfast an hour earlier than normal, but we had to set off to the ExCel for Discover Dogs. Leave home at 6.45am still in pitch black didn't hear a peep from the back and in fact wondered at one point if we did actually put the hounds in or were they still waiting on the drive? We arrive at the ExCel around 8.20am and the car park is a mass of vans and cars decorated in varying degrees of paw print...