Love Your Pets Day

Meet Blofeld | Esther’s pet |  is an old man now at 16, but he’s quite kitten-like and he still loves nothing more than to play with his favourite piece of string (he can do this for hours without getting bored, us not so much….).Anyone with any knowledge of James Bond films will understand why his name is appropriate, but when we first brought him home from the Sheffield Cats Shelter in 2009 he was named Snowy, which didn’t suit his mischievous character at all. He and his mum, Batfink (sadly now deceased) broke into the kitchen and ate a loaf of bread on his first night with us!  He is a very much loved member of our family and we absolutely adore him

Meet Spyder and Princess | Alison’s pets |  –  are much-loved rescue dogs in charge of everything (especially catering) in the Dewar household. Spyder is a Jack Russell Terrier X, who was adopted from the National Animal Welfare Trust in Berkshire, in 2017; while Princess is a Staffy X, adopted in 2016 from RSPCA Danaher Animal Home in Essex. Both are now 16-years-old and still enjoy daily walks interspersed with long snoozes and snacks from the postie – they spend their days in my office ‘helping’ with the daily routine, which includes biscuits and sharing my lunch, but their favourite place is morning cuddles on the bed.

Meet Mavros (also known as Mavro, Maverick, and Mav) | Matthew’s pet |  was adopted by us from Greece in the summer of 2023. We have always adopted black cats (because they are hard to place being considered unlucky), our previous cat Bert sadly passed on in the spring of 2023, and in the summer we were on holiday in Greece when Mavros (Marvros is the Greek word for black) followed us back to our apartment. He was malnourished and flea bitten, and had clearly been abandoned. We took him into the local vet, who explained that as he wasn’t microchipped by law she would have to put him down. We couldn’t bear for that to happen, so we got in touch with a local animal charity (run by a British couple) who nursed him back to health and arranged for him to join us in Birmingham! He is about one year old, and likes food and having his tummy rubbed.