Here I write - Rory Gamin de Pycombe. I have been learning as much as I can to be able to write my words on this blog, which Roo (Mama) tells me is now mine. I don't think I will be doing as well as the ones before me, Gisele and Jasper. They look like they were better of words than I am.
But here is a bit about me to begin with. I probably should ask you not to judge me by the relation of my misadventures on Dartmoor. I would like to say that I regret my choices on that day and I am sorry for the havoc that I caused. But I don't and I'm not - I had a lovely time. Roo has booked another holiday for Dartmoor this summer for us. She says that we will not be troubling His Majesty's Armed Forces again and that I will be on my very best behaviour. Of course I will.
I have been living here with Roo for a little bit more than a year now. I first met her on 14 February 2023 and came home to live in my house on 19 February. Some people called The Blue Cross helped me to find Roo. The picture of me on the left in my black harness was the one on the Blue Cross website that she saw, and this is what they said about me. I was called Ory then:
I can't deny any of what's written there - that sums me up fair enough.
I was born in Wales, though I'm not sure where. My dam (mother) was a French Bulldog and my sire (father) was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier ("that must have been an interesting evening" says Roo). For the first three years of my life I just lived with my mother. My brothers and sisters went to other people's houses but they said that I was the best so they kept me. My mother and I did alright together. We had lots of outside and some inside all to ourselves. People gave us food, but we mostly looked after ourselves.
Then, one day, someone came to where we were. I think he was related to the people who gave us food. There were lots of things said that I didn't understand. Things like "not right" and "neglect", but I didn't really understand. The man left my mother there, I think she was happier there, and took me on a very long journey away. I didn't understand, but he was nice to me and I didn't mind. Then I lived with him mostly indoors in a house that we shared with other men. That was fun. We played games (I liked the rough wrestling games best), had nice food and I could help myself to what I wanted. But I wasn't allowed to go outside by myself anymore and I had to wear a harness and a lead every time the man took me out. I didn't understand and I didn't like it very much. We had a park that we walked to and then we walked home again when I had been to the toilet. There were some other dogs (I didn't know that they were other dogs - they didn't look like my mother or me) who didn't like me. They argued at me when I tried to be nice and then sometimes they bit me. So I learned to be worried about other dogs and decided that the only way for them not to bite me was for me to bite them first. That didn't make me or my man very popular, and it was a big city with only one park to go in. That didn't help matters.
And then my man person had to change his working job and we went to live in a different place with different other men. That was nice too, but we only had one room for us, and not a whole house. The man was working lots. I know he loved me very much, but that is when he started speaking to The Blue Cross people, which made him very very sad. They were nice. They came to visit us in our room and made some films of me going for my walks. Not long after that, me and the man got on a bus and had a long ride to some buildings in the countryside, like a farm but with dogs and cats and little horses. My man had to leave me in a room and go somewhere else. When I was waiting there, I could hear voices outside and saw one of The Blue Cross ladies bring another lady into the next room where she sat down. The new lady looked friendly and I jumped up and down at the glass in the door because I wanted to meet her and be friends. I like making human friends. So I was brought out of the room and met the lady, who was Roo, and then we went for a long walk and talk with The Blue Cross lady. We went around some fields and they had made it so another dog kept walking by, to see what I would do. We saw some deer in a field too (they had those in Wales, hehehe) but I did my best to be a good boy. After that, the new lady said goodbye and I was taken back to my man in another room and we went back home on the bus.
About a week later, we got on the bus again. That was quite nice. We went to the same like a farm place, only my man seemed a bit more sad. He gave me lots of cuddles and said goodbye. Then I went into another new room and onto a table, where someone in a uniform grabbed hold of me and stuck a massive needle in my neck. This was not nice. It was, apparently, "a microchip". While I was still yelping my disgust at that, I was stabbed with another smaller needle - "vaccinations", whatever they may be. I was highly displeased and vowed that I would not put up with that nonsense ever again. But I didn't have long to dwell on that. I was soon ushered into another room, to be reunited with the lady from before - Roo. We went for another nice walk (no deer this time) and then into a room where lots of bits of paper were signed. Then I had my photograph taken. And then I went out just with Roo and Ganna (her mother). I had a special space just for me in a car - a whole car, just for us - with a cushion and a blanket and something to eat. We drove for quite a long time and then went for a lovely walk. After that, just Roo and me went to another house and she said that it was where I live now. A whole house, just for we two, not one room. And there was a garden too, but I didn't want to go into it, in case I ended up in Wales again.
I am very very lucky, but I didn't understand why everything had changed again. I was sad not to see my man again. He had been nice to me. The Blue Cross lady said something like "there was lots of love and good intentions there, but he was unable to give Ory the time and life that he needed". Something like that. Roo wrote him a letter, not with names on or anything like that, just a thank you for all he had done for me and saying that I would be a loved dog, for The Blue Cross people to send to him. I hope they did. He helped to make my life better and I am thankful.
I found it quite easy to learn the ways of my new house with Roo. I was very happy in my new life, very much. Here I am, all happy:
After a few weeks though, Roo had to take me to a new place for something called "to be neutered". No idea what that meant, but it didn't sound good. I recognised the smell and uniform type of the "microchip" and was having absolutely none of it. But - alas! - the "to be neutered" was deemed essential. Miss Roo had signed a Blue Cross paper to say she would do it. And so by medication and a muzzle I was hoodwinked and I fell prey to the evil needle once more. And thus I was neutered at 3 and 1/2 years old. You may judge for yourself from my expression in the car on the way back from the vet (for a vet's place it was) how happy I was about this latest development in my life:
Betrayed, in every sense, by a perfidious female Judas who ought to have judged better. And thus my love-spuds were no more.
But enough of this. This is an account of who I am and how I came to be here. I hope to share with you again. But for now, Roo and I are off to Abbotstone - one of my favourite walk-places and also most popular with my erstwhile predecessors. I am friends with Honey the elderly ginger cat who lives in my road. She is ancient but agile and very sweet. She was alive in Jasper's time.
When I said to her about Abbotstone, she said to me to be careful. She said that Jasper once had "some bother with a buzzard" there. I don't know what a buzzard is, really. A big bird I think. There were two red kites there the other day that were circling the sky immediately above me very closely but they didn't say anything. I made it clear to them that their behaviour was unacceptable. So that's the end of that.
Good evening to you.
