In 1997 we came home from a holiday in Cyprus to find we had acquired a puppy courtesy of our son Russ. He had rescued a whole litter when his friend's dog had puppies thinking the Landlord would evict them or the puppies would be put to sleep and looked after them at our house while we were on holiday and found homes for all of them except the last one he could not part with. He called her Charlie because he thought she was a boy!

Charlie was a little darling, but very shy and nervous at times. We absolutely loved her and she did us, and it broke our hearts when she became ill with Lymphoma aged 11 and after months of tests and chemotherapy she finally died in our garden.

CHARLIE

We then took on my daughter's dog Lucy, who was also a border collie cross rescue dog, but when the grandchildren came along Lucy growled at the children, so when Charlie died we were asked if we would have Lucy.

Lucy was also lovely and still saw the children when they came to us after school, she was OK so long as they didn't annoy her when she would give them a disciplinary growl but she never ever tried to do anything more.

LUCY

September 2015: Unfortunately Lucy became ill aged 15. She was already losing her sight from cataracts and going deaf, but a tumour she had on her side that the Vet refused to operate on two years previously "when it was small" (they said it would be too major an operation), became so large it obstructed her left hind leg, until she got to a point she was losing her balance and falling over frequently, and finally gave up trying to walk.

Being deaf, possibly not being able to see or walk she lay on the floor for a week while the Vets tried to see if they could operate (why couldn't they have done it 2 years before?). I could see that the tumour had spread right across her abdomen and it was also likely to be a vascular tumour which means it would bleed heavily, I could not see how they could possibly remove it, if only they had done so when it was small. But by this time she had become so distressed and we realised there was no chance of rehabilitating her even if the operation had gone ahead, we sadly had to have her put to sleep.

NO DOG from Sept 2-15 - May 2016

We really missed having a dog in the house, and a dog to greet you when you walked in the door, and so in the Spring of 2016 I started to look for another female border collie or BCX. We had decided we would get a rescue dog and not a puppy.

This started to prove a bit difficult as the only border collies that seemed to be available were not suitable for our grandchildren and so I started to search the internet and came across a couple of small Rescue places that specialised in Border Collies.

One was Lilysbordercollielifeline

http://lilysbordercollielifeline.org/collies-for-adoption/

This organisation is a voluntary organisation set up in memory of a BC pup called Lily who died of Parvovirus very young. They don't use kennels - it is a network of of BC fosterers and people willing to transport the dogs to where they are needed and they have a FACEBOOK page for Collies available for re-homing and another page for Adopters and Fosterers to discuss dogs after Adoption - post pictures etc and discuss how the foster dogs are getting on and if there are any problems for help and advice.

A really great idea as the dogs don't have the frustration of kennel life and are more easily assessed in a home environment.

We had a home check and were matched to a dog called Belle who is good with people and children.

We picked up Belle on 8th May 2016

Because we have a grand-daughter Bella, my brother has a dog called Bella, as does a friend of ours, we decided we would have to change her name as it would get too confusing, so we chose the name Elsa.

ELSA

She is really lovely, loves people and children, but has a few annoying habits we have been unable to suppress.

Barking (Loudly)

Digging in the garden

Jumping up at people who don't know her (they don't know she is friendly), but in any case she could be muddy etc!

A couple of videos of Elsa uploaded to Youtube:

Digging

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4hcpW720U&feature=youtu.be

Playing with a plastic cup

Elsa playing launch ball, boy she is fast.

Playing with a football:

Summer 2016,

Campervan holiday with Elsa.

Keston Ponds August Bank Holiday 2016

Christmas 2017

Adrian bought her a dogs Whoopi cushion, it went down a treat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKgelS12Egw&feature=youtu.be

During the first Coronavirus Lockdown in 2020, we shielded even though we didn't receive a letter advising us to shield. We took up the offer of a local volunteer dog walking French family. They came every other day in the early period, and one year later they still come once a week as they love taking Elsa out.