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