Tina and her litter Sister came from Ireland in 2004.

Both has been ISPCA cases (although the owners were never prosecuted). Before they came to English Setter Rescue - Hearing-Dogs assessed them to see if both or one of them would be suitable for their training programme.  First Tina and then Tess failed.

This is Tiny Tina's Diary (you can read earlier postings about her on here (Tina)

Since I wrote my article for the Newsletter in early March so much seems to have happened in the Wollers household so I thought I would just write an update which fills in the gaps on how Pops and Tina are getting along.

 On the morning of the May day holiday I walked into the kitchen to make coffee and spotted Tina lying in full sunshine fast asleep on the dog bed by the conservatory door. She was so spark out that she didn’t even raise an eyelid when I grabbed the milk from the cupboard that contains the corned beef, cheese, sausages, etc., (that’s fridge to the uninitiated!). This is so much in contrast to the dog my husband was walking one morning when the sun suddenly came from behind the clouds - she froze and dropped to the floor in absolute terror and much comforting was required to get her to walk on. I suppose if you’ve spent a part of your life in a cupboard then sunshine can come as a bit of a surprise. That dog no longer exists - she loves to be outside in the garden playing in the sunshine with Pops or snoozing with the sun on her back and we get a huge amount of pleasure seeing her enjoying her life.

 Anyway to go back to events over the last couple of months – late February she developed a false pregnancy (nest building everywhere!) and so it was off to the vets for treatment. She can sometimes be a picky eater (outside of her main meal) so trying to syringe liquid into her mouth on a daily basis was never going to be easy. I was away on business so the task was left to my husband who was pretty grateful she wasn’t heavier than she was. She was very wriggly but the grab and hold tactic John developed over the first week of medication seemed to work well. Pops on the other hand, always very sensitive to spotting ‘vets stuff’ was no help at all and behaved as normal – disappeared up the hall! The milk took ages to dry up and dates for having her spayed had to be delayed. It was finally done 2^nd week in April and the whole family (for moral support) drove off to the vets. The 2 humans were by far the most nervous – Tina saw the trip as an opportunity to be in the car which she loves (although diving in on top of the shopping is discouraged) and playing with everything in sight. Pops knew her jabs weren’t due and was unconcerned. So it was left to John and I to worry about how she would react to being in a cage, how the anaesthetic would affect her, would everything be OK, etc., etc. We waited until after her pre-med – call after 12:30 and pick her up after 15:30 we were told. John dropped me off at work to stare at my computer screen and went home to clean the house – furiously. She was very bright when we collected her and got a good sniffing from Pops when we got home – a couple of good calls in the garden and she curled up and went back to sleep. Tina refused a light evening meal (which Pops was keen to note so it didn’t go to waste) and so always worried about her weight I spoilt her with poached egg on toast for breakfast! The stitches came out in 2 stages and having been very good not to race around and play as she normally does with Pops whilst she had them she demonstrated she was now certainly to make up for lost time.

 Early April Tina and Pops spent their first night with the neighbours and their flat coat retrievers. All went well – Tina ran the younger dog (aged 2) ragged with Pops (at 8) trying hard to keep up. Dinner disappeared on schedule and with as much enthusiasm as normal and everyone settled down for the evening – Pops stretched out on the floor, Tara on one sofa and Tina stretched across my neighbour’s lap. Apparently there wasn’t enough room for Libby who went off to sleep with the cat in the bedroom. I did ask my neighbour why she didn’t move Tina to give her dog some room to settle – apparently she hadn’t the heart (5 star this hotel!) and threatened that at some stage in the future she may have to fight me for her. My neighbour is normally the peacemaker in her family so this comment means she obviously has become as smitten by Tina as we are.

I was a little concerned about Tina and Pops spending a night away as in recent weeks Tina has developed into the puppy she (probably) never was and I worried about damage. 2 pairs of shoes have been irretrievably chewed (only one shoe per pair of course!) and a 3^rd was rescued from the lawn just in time. OK they are only old gardening shoes but I was quite attached to them but I know it was my fault for not putting them away. She’s not touched John’s shoes even though they are always left lying around – probably she has a sensitive nose!

Training classes resumed once Tina had her stitches out – I wondered if we were back to starting from scratch but the garlicky sausage reward has obviously stayed in the memory banks and she is coming on well. So much so that one of the trainers commented on how much her confidence has grown and that if HDFD had persevered with her she would have passed their training regime – I prefer not to think of that. But her confidence is obviously so much better such that last Thursday I had to leave hurriedly as Tina was weighing up whether she could get one of the German Shepherd’s to play. This generally means a lot of larking around and barking followed by Tina grabbing an accessible ear and tugging. Since Zak is nearly as big as donkey and is one of the class problem dogs (still wears a muzzle) it seemed best to disappear quickly. And all this from a little dog who was too afraid to play with Pops for the first couple of weeks she was with us. Its really good to see how much she has grown in confidence and developed her own personality. Before we left we did learn to ‘do a twirl’ which we also demonstrated to Pops & John when we returned home. Pops wasn’t impressed but enjoyed a share of the remaining sausage. John asked whether she would twirl without the garlicky sausage – I asked him whether he did things without incentives!

 Its been a lovely long weekend with most time spent walking or playing with the dogs and a much needed blitz on the garden. Can anyone tell me why it is that when dogs play they avoid leaping around on the borders (and it seems deliberate) and when they stop they just wander all over where you have just dug and planted something you have carefully over wintered? I looked in despair at Pops as within an hour Tina had managed to flatten a well worn path from the small hole in the wall (where my neighbour is just able to stroke her nose!), across a border, the patio, another border and onto the lawn.  Those 2 recently dug and planted borders! Pops just shrugged  . . . but then Pops would.

More soon...

 May 2005

After writing my first diary I decided to take notes of what has happened in the last month. Along with recording the flashes of puppyhood this has resulted in us noticing so many changes since this little chirpy maelstrom came into our lives. She is no longer a timid scrawny little thing but an agile little devil (on occasions) who will give anyone and everyone a good barking at if she has a mind to do so. She is still small at around 15kg and we don’t think she will gain much more weight – that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her dinner as she’ll finish Poppy’s if she gets the chance. Pops takes it all with a pinch of salt as she gets Bonios and more treats during the day (starting at 06:25 when I get up) whereas with Tina we still have to work at these as she’s definitely a main meal girl! When she’s not eating she is either full on or full off. At night she curls into a little ball but during the day, particularly if its sunny, she will be stretched out on the dog bed by the conservatory door where she can watch comings and goings in both house and garden. When she wakes there is lots of stretching followed by wide yawns which always end in a loud squeak which tell us she is up and about and will want to go into the garden. With the warmer light nights (and confident independence) she wants to be out until after dark searching for wild life in the garden; squirrels, magpies, blackbirds, hedgehogs, frogs & toads have all had her attention but she’s not spotted the bats yet. She is particularly fond of the pigeons we have nesting in the laburnum and loves to stalk them but she’s not even close! Often she is aided and abetted by Pops who puts in a full (and noisy) charge!

 On our first trip to the vets after Tina came to live with us I queried the condition of her eyes – they often ran and the fur below the inner corner was stained as if this was a problem she had had for some time. The vet wasn’t worried and just suggested we keep them clean. I suddenly realised only a couple of weeks ago that this problem has disappeared – it’s amazing that sometimes you don’t notice a change until it’s happened. She also had very little coat, this was probably the reason why she used to feel the cold so much. In the first month or so she put on coat – a real flag of a tail with lovely curls around its base. She was just beginning to develop waves down her back when she had her false pregnancy. The coat we were so proud of disappeared and her tum was nearly bald – fortunately she retained the tail and her curls but it was a step back. With her recovery the waves on her back are returning and some days because of the way her fur parts as it grows she has tufts sticking up in all directions. I am optimistic she may even get some feathering as her coat is growing silky and so thick.

 Not only is her coat growing but she is changing colour and is now much darker than when she arrived, she has lots of freckles, her ears are now quite rusty orange and the previously pink nose is now quite brown.

 Whilst we may have got her housetrained some habits have got worse rather than better. If we offered her a treat she had a habit of sniffing it and pushing it back into your hand if she didn’t want it. Now she is more likely to spit it out on the floor generally because the piece of Smacko offered is too big and she will want a smaller piece. Pops is always alert for food (can hear the fridge door and biscuit cupboard door open from a deep sleep) and loves this trick – she is more happy to gather up rejections.  

 A couple of weeks ago we had a new carpet in the lounge so everything had to be removed. It took lots of trips back and forward to the dining room to move all the bits and pieces before beginning to move the furniture. On one trip I noticed the dried flower arrangement on the fireplace had been ‘thinned out’ and the floor was covered with bits of dried grasses. I immediately thought Tina was to blame and we had a chat about it, however I had to apologise some time later when I discovered Pops stretched out on our bed – covered with bits of dried grasses! She may be 8 but she can still have her moments. We had decided to replace the underlay and use the worn stuff to cover the compost bins – both Alan Titchmarsh and Bob Flowerdew recommend it! So a few days later John rolled it out on the lawn so he could cut it into the right sized pieces – what joy Tina had playing with that. Much more fun than the raggies and other toys – you can shake it, rip it and if the piece is big enough it will trip you over so you can give it a good barking at! I wish I’d seen it as apparently it kept all 3 of them occupied for hours with John failing to keep the girls in check – Pops had to join in too obviously.

 Pops has had her first summer trim and is now looking really smart – being spayed she has a really thick curly coat and can get so hot in the summer so we keep her quite short on top. Tina wasn’t sure about the clippers at first and watched carefully. The first couple of times she allowed me to trim her paws but there was no way I was able to trim her ears. However we’ve now had a quick trim of her ears and she looks as smart as Pops.

 Last weekend we cleared out the ponds – Pops assessed the activity as boring and disappeared for a sleep but Tina had obviously never seen anything like this happen before. After an hour of her helping – clambering over the (now dry) waterfall, splashing in the water, dragging the plants around the lawn, chewing anything that smelt disgusting and generally getting in the way we put her into the house with a pile of toys. We turned around some time later to see her standing on the kitchen window ledge amongst the plant pots monitoring our progress! This may sound bad but it is preferable to the day when again we had to prevent her from helping us and we turned to see her standing 4 paws planted on the breakfast table amidst the place mats and the pepper grinder. The only evidence it actually happened was her muddy paw prints - nothing was knocked over!  

 Apart from the ponds which are now a great source of amusement, pull on a plant and once you’ve chucked it around the lawn for a while there is left a very chewable plastic pot, she has her hidey holes. Most popular is behind the red azalea and under the camellia – that ever growing number of green plastic coated metal stick things intended to bar the way just means you have to jump over. A cry of ‘Tina off’ from the kitchen just results in the sudden appearance of this little face staring out from a gap in the greenery. However if John calls and jerks a thumb at the kitchen she will jump out and come inside – they spend most of their time with him so he is better at getting attention.

 Its really nice to come home from work though and get a fabulous welcome irrespective of the sort of day you’ve had, someone really is pleased to see you – one of the joys of having dogs so I guess everyone will identify with that. And what a welcome Pops comes tearing up tail wagging with a huge grin on her face whereas Tina will leap out of the conservatory door – sometimes travelling at so much speed she’s nearly taken the legs out from under me. Some days she’ll spot me from the front window ledge (still covered with rubber car mats to prevent her slipping) and will race through the house to get to the door before me.

 Evenings are really special as she’ll settle down on my lap or leap onto the sofa next to me, sit and lean back to stare up at me – sometimes she leans back so far she falls over backwards. She seems to enjoy this as it’s become one of her party pieces.  

 Speaking of parties next month we are having a BBQ in the garden for around 30 friends – an annual event but we’re not sure how Tina will react. Pops loves it – food for several hours and loads of people and children come around to play. Tina will, as always, watch and learn from her mentor before she gets into the swing of things! A week later we are off on holiday for a couple of weeks so the girlies will spend their time with the flat coat retrievers next door – we’ve already started regular acclimatisation visits. How will she cope ? Let you know next month . . . . 

 Lots of love,

 Pops, Tina, John  & Gill

January 2006

The training has well and truly paid off....Tina has been promoted.  No more 7.30 start for us - we now join the 8.00 pm brigade!!
(we are with the big boys know....)!

Of course this later time start is seriously encroaching into Tina's beauty sleep regime...so we shall have to figure out ways to keep her awake.

Best Wishes

Pops, Tina, John and Gill

Well Done Tina I thought a Green Rosette was the order of the day for an Irish English Setter....

Coleen