Fun with Ollie

Here we are again, returning to a house sit in the Costa Brava region of Spain. Last year we cared for Alfie (cat), but he sadly passed away just a few weeks prior to our arrival. Our home owners, have a new pet, Oliver (Ollie), a gorgeous 11 month old Shih Tzu. A puppy they purchased 9 months ago, so Ollie is a ‘new addition’ for us.

Ollie is really cute and full of energy so caring for him was like looking after a small toddler! He loved to play games and had a box full of soft toys, but had one particular favourite – “squeaky”. And, yes, he squeaks, hence the name.

We had hours of fun playing all games imaginable with Ollie and squeaky.

• Hide n seek with squeaky
• Tug-o-war with squeaky
• Chasey with squeaky
• Fetch with squeaky

Hide n seek was Ollie’s favourite game. He would drop ‘squeaky’ at your feet. We would then pretend to throw ‘squeaky’, while hiding ‘squeaky’ in the back of our shorts. Ollie would then begin searching for ‘squeaky’. While he was busy searching we would find somewhere to hide ‘squeaky’. Ollie would continue his search for ‘squeaky’ and if he hadn’t found him within a few minutes, he would start to get a little ‘stressed’ so we would give him clues to where ‘squeaky’ was hidden.  When ‘squeaky’ was found, we get to play this game, again and again, every morning and night!

Our daily routine with Ollie was:

• 2 x 30 minute walks
• food (3 meals/day)
• grooming
• play time (as mentioned above)

Ollie was only able to be left at home alone for a maximum of 4 hours which made it a little difficult for us to explore further afield. The home owners kindly made arrangements for Ollie to stay with a friend as well as a visit to Doggy Day Care to give us a few days to get out and about.

We took this opportunity to re-visit a few of our favourite places from last year like the many quaint medieval villages and some beautiful coastal walks and towns. In particular, we made the long cycling journey into Girona (65km return trip) again! Some of the scenes from the Game of Thrones were filmed in Girona, so we became ‘nerds’ and visited these sites and visualized the actual scenes. You can read about our visit in this blog post – Girona AKA Kings Landing

The day prior to the home owners return, Ollie became unwell. He was lethargic, sleepy and not eating his food, so we took him to the vet and the poor little thing had ‘dog flu’. The vet gave him a couple of ‘shots’ and in a day or two he was back to his usual self.

Too quickly our month here passed. The home owners returned and were very happy to be reunited with their baby boy Ollie (and away from their UK holiday where it rained most days.)

We love this part of Spain and hope to return again in the future.

What the home owners said – “…Glenn and Jacqueline take on the task with a high degree of professionalism; they even sent us a pre sit questionnaire to ensure that they had all the relevant information with regard the house and our pets requirements.

We have no hesitation in recommending Glenn and Jacqueline, they are both very easy to get on with and a very nice couple who genuinely want to do a good job.....”

Click here to see the full reference

Next stop for us – Jordan. We are taking a week off from house-sitting and spending a week exploring Jordan.