Crete Kennels: Into the New Year

Peter and Kimberley write: ‘Well, January was busy again but we did get one day off. We spent the day making our first ever trip to Hania – to buy Duvets for the smaller dogs (so work is never far away from our minds)!
They say that Crete is a close-knit island community, well, from our experience up until now this has proved to be absolutely correct. So many of the dogs’ owners and people we meet (of all nationalities) seem to be connected to each other in one way or another. Even the man who loads our bleach into the car each month is the brother in law of a new customer – who is a friend of one of our regulars…. and so it goes on.
This month the names of our guests seemed to revolve around a certain theme:
We had a ‘Woody’ (as in the woodpecker!), a ‘Minnie’ and a ‘Goofy’ - the Greeks like cartoons - each owned by separate people.
As ever, each of our guests displayed unique and endearing characteristics that made them ’special’; however it was Goofy in particular (pictured in the photo above) who stole the hearts of our visitors and the other dogs.
He acted more like a polar bear cub than a puppy as he entertained us all while investigating the kennel grounds as his ‘giant play area’.

Many of our plans for this year are ‘belt and braces’ work – putting in double locks for added security, building more gates and extra play areas – all to guarantee the safety of our guests and to give them even more space to enjoy, whatever the weather.
Unfortunately, the weather has played havoc with our plans for the site improvements this month. Just when we had finished sowing thirty kilos of grass seed on the new play area it started to pour down. All the grass seed ended up in the gorge below us, which will look wonderfully green this year! Oh, well, at least the sheep will enjoy it. Another downer is the discovery that welders have an aversion to doing arc welding in the rain!
Our licence is now being renewed – and of course, the authorities have modified the rules a bit! So we now are busy making those small refinements needed. This only applies to us as we are the only licenced kennels in the Province! Hey ho…. at least we’re still smiling!’

Canine Tip of the Month….. From our Doggie guests… please keep up the walks (even if you have to keep us on a lead) during the rain and please towel us down on our return……… a walk to the Taverna will do just fine!