Quite an interesting year so far !

 Hi,

I'm having a great time this year with a lot of walking as well as some cycling! I have been for beach walks and hill walks as well as train and bus rides. I have been to Liverpool on the train and Chester on the bus, the city trips are very different to my country adventures, a whole lot of different smells.

Waiting for my train.

As usual a lot of my time is spent in Eryri and in particular Gwynedd county. My humans are quite considerate and generally only go out with me for long walks when the weather is dry so even early in the year I get to go out on lovely days, just look at the blue sky in the photograph below taken at Aber Gwenwyn-feirch.

A large number of my walks have been around the Mawddach estuary which often involves a bus trip to or from Dolgellau or Barmouth 

 Barmouth beach and the view 

 from Fegla Fawr.

I've also spent some fantastic days (and a couple of nights) at doggy day care, I love this as I get to meet doggy friends and have a great time scampering around with my new friends and lovely humans. I went on a super new walk called the Precipice Walk, it's near Llanfachreth on the Nannau Estate and has brilliant view towards Cadair Idris and over the Mawddach. 

Spectacular views of the Mawddach (above) and 
the whole of the Cadair ridge (below).

My most recent scamper was a trip to the Mawddach Trail with my humans on bikes, so I did go cycling in a way although I didn't actually ride a bike. My humans bought a special back-pac for me last year and I think their idea was that they would carry me in it while they cycled. Well, they tried it, however I made it quite clear that despite my advancing years I wanted to jog alongside the bikes. I had to jog quite slowly so that the humans could keep up and they managed to keep up so we had a lovely couple of hours.

The back-pac is the red one on the table.

A little bit of rock climbing !

Wags and woofs,

Dexter

Birthday

 On 16th February I was 12 years old!  I had a great day with some presents, lunch out, a walk in the woods and a birthday cake. What a lovely day !

Happy Birthday to me!

That's enough excitement for the day, time to sleep.

Wags and woofs,

Dexter.

First blog of 2026 - Happy New Year everyone!

Work in progress .  

This year has got off to a very promising adventurous start for me. I went on a large ferry after a car journey to Heysham and sailed across the sea to the Isle of Man. You may remember my earlier blogs about ferry trips to the Hebrides but this was a bit longer crossing and I had a special cabin, there was even a special tree for me to water in the dog exercise area.

Nothing much happening but
 I'm keeping a good lookout 

My special cabin 

I spent a few days on the Isle of Man, the weather was very wet and stormy for a couple of days but I was able to get out to interesting places and best of all a lot of the places I visited allowed well behaved humans to accompany their dogs. I thought the best way to show you what I got up to was to add photos and caption the photos.

You can see Peel Castle in the background, a lovely place for a walk and a run on the beach.  I waded into the sea to fetch a stick which was something I don't usually do.

The Peel-P50. Since 1962 the smallest production car ever made !

After a pleasant walk around the castle headland I saw a tiny car, the Peel-P50 pootling around Peel harbour, it would be great for me and one of my humans. Another port of call for a walk was Port Erin in the south of the island where I had an interesting walk from Bradda Glen to Bradda Head to visit Milner's Tower, it was a short walk but a reasonable climb up to the tower.  The weather was fairly good with not much wind and just a light shower.  In fact some of the best weather for the whole stay on the island.

The view across Port Erin Bay, Milner's Tower and top of the tower.

Only a short drive north of Port Erin and another short walk to Niarbyl and Niarbyl Bay on the east coast.  The sun came out and I had the chance to explore a rocky cove and look out across the bay.

View south towards Bradda Head and the Calf of Man.

Exploring the beach and getting wet paws.

Wheely interesting stuff!  Two waterwheels at Laxey, the big one is famous, the smaller one interesting too.

Water wheels at Laxey.

All too soon it was time to leave the Isle of Man, I left on an evening sailing in the dark so I slept most of the way on the sea crossing and then slept again on the drive home.

Wags and woofs,

Dexter

Catching up on 2025.

It's a while since I updated my blog, I have been so busy enjoying myself that there was not enough time to write - well that's my excuse. If I told you I had been telling my human to write the blog you might not believe me.

This year was pretty much the same sort of super doggy stuff that I normally do, so walking and running in Wales and various different parts of England. I often only run short distances but if I am not slow and want to carry on my human lets me run as far as I want. The human seems very good at judging when I feel tired (although I sometimes suspect that he's the tired one) and now I generally have a few days off between runs.

On the 16th February it was my 11th birthday, time for special dog biscuits and cards.  One of the cards was an edible card for dogs, that's it on the the right of my bowl, very strange and I did not like it.  There was cake for the humans too.

In mid-March I went to curlew celebration at Chick Castle, the curlew is a a bird that has become very rare in Wales so efforts are being made to encourage it to breed on the upland areas.  It's a ground nesting bird so very vulnerable to predators and being disturbed. Because of the danger of disturbing ground nesting birds I have to be on my lead between March and 31st July and stay close to my human on the hills even if there are no sheep. You can read more about the Curlew Project on this link. There was lots of singing (I joined in) and a story teller at the event as well as a fantastic curlew sculpture that local children had made.

Curlew Celebration at Chirk Castle

My humans went away for a couple of weeks in the late summer to a place where they said it would be too hot for me (and apparently I would not have been allowed on an aeroplane) so I went to stay with some different humans.  I had a great time with the new humans, sent some pictures to my 'normal' humans and generally did not miss being at home.

Not so much beach time in 2025 but enough active time to keep making me sleep. Including walks in Llangollen and around Llyn Tegid.

Llyn Tegid sunset

Afon Dyfrdwy/River Dee at the Chain Bridge

A notable new experience was a visit to Chester Cathedral to see the Christmas trees, I had never been to the cathedral so that was new and fun for me. I was very good and did not water any of the trees having been told that is not the thing to do in a cathedral.

Chester Cathedral 

Chester Cathedral 

      

More Christmas lights - Dolgellau. 

The humans have bought me a backpack, not for me to carry my stuff but a backpack to carry me.  I have had a couple of rides in it but I am not convinced about it yet. The humans assure me it is a great idea and will be very useful on longer walks and bike rides, well I will report back in due course on that idea. 

Do I look convinced that this is a great idea?

I had a very nice snowy walk in December on the hills near Bala,  although it was foggy in town there was lovely sunshine once I had climbed the first hill. As the photo shows it made Arenig Fawr appear as though it was part of a very high mountain range.

Snowy mountains.

I rounded off the year with a trip to Barmouth/Abermaw on 29th December 2025 which gave me a chance to have a super scamper on the sand and a long walk with the humans. Although it was very cold the sunshine made it worthwhile, I did so much running that as soon as I was in the car I was asleep. The photos show how beautiful it was.

Almost 2026! A super day by the seaside.

That's it for now, I hope 2026 is a great year for everybody.

Woofs and wags,

Dexter 

 

New Year 2025 - January and February

 I hope everyone had a fun time at Christmas, I went to visit my doggy nephew Toby. That was great fun, he’s much younger than me but I was able to chase him around until he was worn out. 

As aways playtime around Christmas produces some interesting things, this was puzzling but seemed to excite the humans, I didn't quite understand why these things (little bikes) were wizzing around the track (or sometimes leaving the track on the bends).

I had a bit of an awkward fall off a hospital bed when visiting a human later on in January and that put me out of action for a couple of weeks as I hurt my leg. Getting back to fitness has taken a lot longer than usual, my human is only letting me do short walks and occasional gentle runs until I am fully fit. I’ve managed to get over to Hilbre Island and to Delamere Forest so far. Some days I feel really tired and when I am feeling like that my favourite pastime is sleeping. I had a short walk at Llandegla with one of my humans while the other one went biking, I was not happy that I couldn’t chase the bike.

There was a pleasant walk to the pub for treats and a drink (water for me),as you can see from the photo I really expected to be given some beer but, nope, I wasn’t allowed any.

That beer you are drinking 

looks really good 😊 

I had a great walk in Delamere Forest away from the crowds so I had lots of time off the lead. When I am off the lead it means I do a lot more exploring and running around without having to try and drag my human with me. The first part of the walk was to a hill called Old Pale Hill, from the hill there is a fantastic view over seven counties, five in England as well as Flintshire and Denbighshire in Wales.

An easy stroll from Old Pale Hill led back into the forest where I encountered Wallace and Gromit, sadly no cheese was available as I'm partial to a nice Wensleydale (or any sort of cheese!).

During the second week of February I had a decent run, with my human, it was mainly off-road and I feel that my injury is fully better now.  The day after my run I had a great walk in Llandegla Forest, the weather was very cold, overcast and there were some flurries of snow but a fantastic chance to be off the lead and do plenty of exploring.

Typical scampering and sniffing at LLandegla!

My walk in Delamere Forest and to Old Pale Hill involved walking on a long distance trail called the Sandstone Trail which is a 55 km trail from Whitchurch to Frodsham in Cheshire.  I have walked and run on most parts of the Sandstone Trail over the years including the area around Bickerton and Duckington in the south of Cheshire so it was nice to go back to the area a few days before my birthday. The hill provides great view over to the Pennines in one direction and over the Dee valley and the Clwydian Hills in Wales.  

Bickerton Hill 93 metres above sea level.

On the way up to the hill fort at Maiden Castle 
and waiting for slow humans!

After being in the countryside one day the next day proved to be a contrast with a visit to town, in this case Chester.  As often happens this involved a bus journey, something I am quite used to, one of the human passengers on the bus was eating a lovely looking sausage roll, I gave them my long stare in an effort to have some of the lovely smelling food.  Alas this did not work and they scoffed the whole lot.

 A very cold wait for the bus followed by a much warmer ride on the bus...but no sausage roll.

Happy Birthday to me, what an exciting day it was.  I got some birthday cards, one of which was edible, and some special birthday treats to celebrate my 11th birthday.

Here's me after my run, I had just had a shower to clear away the mud, I was really, really muddy after the run and my human was a bit mucky too!

My birthday run was in Delamere, I love running there and there's a picture of my route below. Not a bad pace for an 11 year old trail-hound!

           It was a very enjoyable run although the weather was overcast and quite cold, roundabout 3 degrees but quite a strong cold wind on the top of the hill so we didn't stay long on the hill.

The picture of me on the bench is me admiring the non-view and the wooden boar is one of Sandstone Trail markers directing to Frodsham one way (north) and Whitchurch the other way.  I've been photographed here lots of times and it was nice to be back. Although the view from the hill was not good the downhill scamper to the Sandstone Trail led to more interesting things as well as lovely muddy bits and lots of other dogs to meet and exchange sniffs. 

Apparently I am off on my holidays soon, a bit of a mystery as my humans are not coming with me, strange...

Wags and woofs,

Dexter