5.0

Now a mature professional with over ten years’ experience of caring for many and various four legged friends, as a child I grew up with dogs: a West Highland terrier and three German Shepherds ! After many years without a canine companion (career, marriage, babies getting in the way!), my life was put back on track following annual visits to the great Discover Dogs show at Earls Court in the early 2000s. These visits led to my family becoming part of the Metropolitan Police programme of socialising drug detection dog puppies: an exercise that involves taking the puppy home at eight weeks and looking after the pup until the conclusion of the training programme – usually when the dog is ten months or so. Over a four year period we brought up – and fell in love with - four gorgeous black Labrador puppies: Charlie, Luna, Zeus and Quincy. It was quite a journey. After the Met Police experience, we were seduced away from the Force by a local Chiswick friend who was heavily involved with the small London based dog charity All Dogs Matter; she convinced us to foster dogs for the charity, prior to re-homing: so began another journey. For a little over two years we fostered and re-homed 23 dogs in total: from mutts to Malamutes; Huskies to Rottweilers; with plenty of Staffies and Staffie Crosses along the way, until we finally ended up with our own delightful Staffie Cross, Leila. How she was re-homed and found her way back to us is a tale in itself ! The nature of my freelance job means I can sit your dog either here at home in leafy West London, or even in your own (London) home if you would prefer your friend to have home comforts (as long as you have broadband access for my laptop !). With both myself and my wife working from home, you can be sure your canine chum will never be alone. Any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am a freelance professional and work from home on a daily basis, so I have plenty of time to devote to the dogs in my care. Our home is dog friendly and as well as having our own private, fenced in, garden, we are - literally - five minutes walk from our nearest park.