The owner/director and lead instructor of LL Pilates lives near Tarporley with her husband Sean, red labrador Alfie, aged five, and two-year-old golden/red retriever Ava
We had two years without a dog and it just didn’t feel right. We went hunting for Alfie, looking for a fox red labrador and there are a lot of fox reds in Market Drayton and Church Stretton and Alfie was the last in the litter. I don’t think he was red enough so he was left behind.
We had a chocolate labrador before but we found it less trainable.
When Alfie arrived, the life just came back into a house, and all the dog hair as well. That’s the big thing about Ava, we’ve never had a retriever before, but by God the hair...
As my business picked up, we felt Alfie needed a companion and it has worked really really well because most of my hours of teaching are here at home so I’m not far away from them and between classes I’ll let them out and sometimes they even come and sleep in the corner of the barn where I’m teaching or just lie downstairs listening to me waffling away upstairs and I find that very comforting.
Ava was a lockdown baby. We collected her along with thousands of other people collecting dogs for company.
Alfie's indignation with Ava at first was hilarious. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with her. I was thinking we’ve made a really big mistake and she was desperate for his affection. It probably took a good two weeks for him to get used to it.
Ava’s bubbly, friendly, loves everybody and she’s a very beautiful lady, apart from her hair.
Alfie’s really kind and genuinely adores us.
Ava’s very superficial. She body barges Alfie out of the way when you cuddle him.
I’ve been amazed at how intelligent Ava is. And very easy to train. I wanted to get the training right and bought an amazing book by Steve Mann called Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy, which really helped me understand the psyche of dogs.
We play find the toy, it’s like hide and seek and it keeps them really busy. I take a toy and they have to sit in the kitchen and they can’t see where I’m going and I’ll hide it somewhere in the garden room and whoever finds it first gets a treat. It was funny watching her when she first came as she didn’t have a clue what this game was and couldn’t understand why Alfie kept getting all these treats. Then she realised she had to sniff it out.
They’re much harder to control when they’re together. They rev each other up when you’re out walking and if one sees something the other one is like what’s going on so you end up with two bundles of spinning trouble.
I’m the one who loves the dogs most. My favourite thing is going on holiday with the dogs to the Lake District. The rest of the family are like, 'do we have to?'.
Alfie adores paddle boarding. He’s got his own little life jacket and because we introduced it to him when he was young, he runs and jumps on the paddle board without me now. I was very brave last summer and I took them both at the same time although I couldn’t stand up with both of them on. We do our bit of core strength on the paddle board in Anglesey – they love that.
Sean tends to talk to the dogs a lot. They look out for words like walkies..
They love watching David Attenborough especially when he's with yelping birds or dogs. And Alfie quite likes watching football.
Getting them a passport is on my bucket list. I’d love to go all the way from Crewe to Grindelwald on the train with them and walk in the Alps.
They’re a bit like a married couple. Alfie will let her push him around but only to a certain point and then he’s ‘right, I’ve had enough now'. She thinks she’s in charge but he’ll be the one who says the final 'that’s enough'.
Alfie smiles a lovely smile. He does a little grin.
Titbits
We’re right between the Sandstone trail country – Bickerton and Burwood. Bulkeley Hill Wood is a lovely place and we’ve got Little Budworth common down the road. And in lockdown, we had Portal Golf Club and we can walk there from the gate.
Our pet shop is Tarporley DIY shop – they have loads of good dog treats.
We take them to the Rising Sun and the Swan in Tarporley.
Alfie barks in a protective way. Ava has got quite a pathetic little baby bark for such a big girl.
Plans for April
Reformer Pilates timetable is expanding at Tarporley and The LL app will be launching later in 2023 along with our first LL Retreat.
