Our summer holiday was spent at Astley Castle. Four photo nerds in a stunning house with our gorgeous little doglets ... the result was a series of beautiful photos which we've put together in this ebook as a record of our lovely holiday at Astley. 

This ebook is best viewed on a landscape screen.

I recently decided to go on a last minute trip to Venice so that I could take Theo to see the lady who bred him, Linda, who lives in the US but was over in Europe on holiday. We don't get to see Linda very often so it felt like an opportunity not to be missed! 

Are we going to see Linda? Really? Really???!!! Yipppeeee!

I had a total of one evening and four days to get from Manchester to Venice and back with Theo. Driving from Manchester to Venice takes around 24 hours straight so that was never going to work. In the end I settle on getting from Manchester to Paris via London, and then flying from Paris to Venice and back again. This is how the mad road trip turned out ... 

If your dog would like to go to France to see experience the real Eiffel Tower you may be surprised to know that it's a lot easier than you might think!

The photos that we posted in March on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram of our four monkeys on holiday with us skiing in France, and then Christine and Theo’s mad road trip Manchester - London – Paris - Venice, sparked a lot of questions from our friends about travelling with dogs so we thought we’d do a write up of our experience of travelling from the UK to France with the monkeys for those who may be interested in travelling with their own dogs. Why France, because once you're on the continent you can go anywhere with your dog, even if it's the other side of the world! (We will post soon on our experiences of Flying with Dogs and it involves getting to Paris!) 

We thought we’d done her in and she was never coming back but this morning we hopped into the car to go on our morning walk and when we got to the car park and climbed out, who should be there but the Doggie Dictator.

So it looked like our morning was not going to include the normal high jinks but actually things did not unfold as expected and I was pleasantly surprised, of which more later.

Any excuse for a bit of doggie fancy dress! It's Chinese New Year and what better way to celebrate than a sheep dog photo shoot to welcome in the Year of the Sheep! Wishing you and your hounds every happiness for this new lunar year!