Fetcher Dog Weekly Diary! - 16th June- 22nd June 2025

Thank you for all the love on last week’s diary, I’m so glad you all liked it and are interested in what goes on behind the scenes at Fetcher Dog!

The week started on a slight low as both myself and Jo managed to injure ourselves (or rather our very naughty dogs injured us) before we had even started work for the week. My dog Dixie is like one of those dogs you see online who lie down in protest when it’s time to go in after a walk but in this instance her timing was very abrupt and I fell forward through a wooden step and bashed my knee on the edge of the caravan. Jo has an Akita named Nora (some of our long term supporters may remember her) who has a penchant for chasing cats. During her walk on Monday morning she pulled a little too hard bending Jo’s fingers right back resulting in a fractured middle finger!

We had a quick trip out on Monday to get our van tyres sorted after the motorway breakdown last week. We use our van a lot to move our dogs back and forth, go to vets and go on special day trips with the dogs so we need to always make sure the van is ready to be used in case of an emergency!

Every day this week has been very hot at the centre so we’ve been trying to find alternative ways to entertain our babies whilst keeping them cool. It’s a hard challenge but we are trying our very best! Luckily a few of the babies do really love water so we have had the paddling pools out all week in an attempt to keep them cool whilst having fun!

We welcomed back Debbie on Tuesday, a long term volunteer who was away for a few months with a bad back. Debbie helps us out every Tuesday and has no problem getting really stuck in and helping with all the messy work. Even though it’s not the most glamorous job, it is so important for the dogs to have lovely clean kennels every day so having an extra pair of hands is SO helpful to us. It also means we can get a few extra jobs done on the days we have volunteers on centre! Welcome back Debbie and thank you for your continued help!!!!

We continued on with our series where we take dogs out for wonderful day trip on Tuesday and I took Jimmy out to meet musician Gabrielle Aplin where he was showered in affection. He loved meeting her and her band, exploring her rehearsal studio and napping as she sang to him. Afterwards he went on a walk in the local area, seeing loads of new people, dogs and ducks. As if he wasn’t spoiled enough, he was also treated to a puppacino at a local café and ended the day with a nap on the way home. Jimmy was a nervous and shy boy when he arrived but he did so well and was truly in his element when out and about, we are so proud of the progress he has made. A BIG thank you to Gabrielle and her team for making the time to give our boy the best day.

We are called continuously with requests to take in new dogs from locals who can no longer care for their dogs and Wednesday morning started with a request from someone looking for a space for their recently deceased Dad’s 10-year old chihuahua who had been left alone in the home and had nowhere to go. We took to Facebook and Instagram to ask you guys if anyone was up for fostering him and we got an overwhelming response. We are so grateful to everyone who steps up to help us in times like this. We know we can’t help everyone who calls as we just don’t have the resources but we try to help as many dogs as we can. The rest of Wednesday was relatively uneventful and we cracked on with our normal day to day work around the centre, making sure all the dogs had lovely clean kennels and fresh bedding and getting them all out even if only for a tiny while because of the heat.

Two dogs headed to the vets Thursday morning for their health checks, vaccines, microchips and neuters! They always look so sorry for themselves when we go back to pick them up but spaying/neutering is so important that we have to try and ignore their pleading puppydog eyes. We have finally named our newest JRT boy, Stanley. This was picked out from your name suggestions so thank you to everyone who commented on his post and suggested names for him. Our scruffy terrier boy has now been reserved for adoption (yay!) and was named Baxter by the family that will be collecting him!

We have been working behind the scenes with a company that comes highly recommended by a friend of Fetcher Dog that will be able to help us finally get some Fetcher Dog merchandise! We are starting with a baseball cap as requested by the Instagram followers and we will add more and more items as we go. We hope to take suggestions on what everyone wants and expand the amount of products we will have available to purchase. All the profits from the merchandise will be going towards our new kennel deposit fund SO I hope you’ll all get involved and buy lots of bits when it’s up and running!

We have also been working on a raffle that started on Friday to win an Airbnb voucher worth £300!!! This is such a fantastic prize and can be used against so many great places to stay on Airbnb as well as the excursions they have available on the site! We are raising money towards our big recent vet bills and hope you’ll be willing to help us towards this goal whilst giving yourselves the chance to win this incredible prize. It’s £5 a ticket and you can enter as many times as you want for more chances to win. Please head to the link below to enter!

Sanctuary dog Stella headed to the vets on Friday as she has been struggling with a new growth on her eye. (The photos are quite graphic but I’ll put them right at the end of the carousel!) Stella was initially rescued from Bosnia many years ago and struggled with a birth defect in which she had a hole in her soft palette which allowed food to enter into her lungs. This would then rot in her lungs and make her very ill. She had a massive operation to fix this which was successful but the years of illness has left her with a weakened immune system and permanent rhinitis. She also had an injury to her eye which meant she had to have a permanent lens put into her eye to stop her from going blind. She had an extensive exam on her eye at the vets where they determined that as the growth was hard, it needed a biopsy. She is such a good girl and is so calm that they just needed to use some numbing cream and she stayed perfectly still as they cut some small sections out of the lump. Stella is a permanent fixture at the centre, constantly greeting anyone who doesn’t mind having cuddles from a snotty little gremlin. She is such a lovable and loving girl and we hope the results of her biopsy come back quickly and are good. (The photos of her eye are a bit gruesome so if anyone is squeamish, I wouldn’t look).

This weekend was very hot which meant we were focussed on keeping the dogs as cool and calm as possible. It also means that arranging meet and greets is difficult as we don’t want the dogs to get too excited about meeting new people so adoptions can take a bit of a hit. Hopefully the weather cools down and things can go back to normal next week!

And finally, we have a little request if anyone if willing to help us around the centre in the next few weeks!

We have been doing lots of clearance and gardening recently but with the weather, it’s been hard to get on top of it with our little team so some extra hands would be a massive help.

Please message us if you can spare a few hours to help us out!

Thank you to everyone who read the diary again this week, I hope you enjoyed it!

See you next Monday!

Love, Jordan xxxxxx