Four Years Of Bisbee!!

4 years ago we bought home our first family member, a fluffy bundle that we know and love as Bisbee. Four years on we still count Bisbee as one of our best decisions. EVER.

The love we have for this dog is boundless, bountiful and best of all it is reciprocated.

We knew this year would be an interesting one for Bisbee especially with Bisbee becoming a big sister. A role she has taken very seriously. We even included her in Annabelle's naming day (post on that here). We have also jampacked Bisbee's year in other ways too, this post is just a quick run through of some of the highlights!

Everyone we know had two concerns 1) How would Bisbee react and 2) Would Bisbee like the baby. Well if you saw this post about having a baby and a dog you'll know that everything has worked out just fine. Our adaptable, loving Bisbee has welcomed Annabelle and enjoys having the extra attention when guests arrive. I don't think she minds me being at home more either!

At the start of this year we took a family trip with friends up to Scotland and spent time walking in snow covered mountains, taking in stunning scenery and adding a first for Bisbee - a dunk in an icy lake! The poor dog was investigating the ice when *crack* in she went. Laura and I both reacted by grabbing her out of the lake - a moment our friend caught on camera. We are kinda glad as it's the first time anything like that has happened and I'm sure, if Bisbee has anything to do with it, it'll be the last.

That trip was also fun for Bisbee as we took a boat to a secluded island in Loch Lomond for a walk, it turns out the island is home to deer and Bisbee and Farley (our friends dog) had a wonderful time chasing them. All we saw were flashes of Bisbee's pink coat. By the time she realised she'd never catch them it was time to get back on the boat. We were then heading home and Bisbee slept the entire 4 hour journey!

Deer weren't the only thing Bisbee chased this year, on our trip to Wales we came across sheep on one of our walks and Bisbee tried herding them. As they took off up the hill all we could do is watch and holler to try and get her back.

It is fair to say we have two Bisbee's. While the chasing exploits suggest an energetic dog who loves to be out and about the otherside of Bisbee is the opposite. Most days she'll be found asleep on the guest bed if the sun is bathing the bed. Or she'll be asleep under Annabelle's cot or on the couch next to us. On some days we have to physically cajole her out on a walk. A walk she loves once we're out but it's still a performance getting her there.

We have also had it confirmed that Bisbee definitely doesn't hate having her photo taken. At points in the past we thought we may be pushing her but as we set up photos with Annabelle who should appear - Bisbee! She can pull out a pose quicker than Annabelle. In fact we often have to give Bisbee treats for staying out of the photo!!!

Bisbee even dressed up for Laura's 30th princess party - as Cinderella!

At Halloween we went to Dogbeth Dining Club, an event with street food stalls for the humans and treats galore for the dogs. The dogs also had a fancy dress parade - we didn't enter - but it was great seeing all the costumes.

We walked 8 miles around Manchester in search of bees! Our post on the day is here.

We met Santa as a family and Bisbee got to play in fake snow.

On top of all of that we have a seriously loyal dog - unless my Mum is around then we're dumped - but this was highlighted recently when I was fighting my way into a rose bush to retrieve some items thrown in there after being stolen (a story for another day unless you saw it on our Instagram stories). After 10 or so minutes of fighting through to get to the centre I look up and who should be there - Bisbee. Our silly dog was soaking and had side stepped thorns and sharp bushes to be right beside me. It made my heart happy in ways only Bisbee can.

A final thought. When we got pregnant we were told that our love for our child would eclipse anything we've ever felt - including the love we have for Bisbee - but I can honestly say those people were wrong. Of course we love Annabelle wholeheartedly BUT our love for Bisbee hasn't changed, if anything it's increased. We don't love them differently. They are our family and we love our family as a whole. Bring on so many more years of our family adventures filled with love!

There you have it 4 years of Bisbee. Another wonderful year packed to the brim of wonderful memories and moments with our amazing pup.

If you want to check out last years Bisbee post or any Bisbee posts click here.

Review: Head of Steam Birmingham

Have you heard of Head of Steam? It is Birmingham's latest pub/restaurant now open in the city centre.

With a wide array of craft beer from the UK and beyond, a great menu and a dogs welcome policy this place has to be on your 'to-do' list this summer.

Located a short walk from Birmingham New Street station, the main shopping area and the cathedral it is in a prime location for a lunch drop in or evening meal. Or if you really like beer it's a great place to get your beer tasting on. In fact June see them offering exclusive European beers as part of the brands Euro Beer Week.

Birmingham is the latest location for the company who have established themselves in locations from Newcastle and Huddersfield to Leicester and Nottingham. You can find all locations here.

You can see why they have successfully expanded, while the concept isn't new, Birmingham has a large offering of craft beer pubs - it does provide something different. With live music and the location split into a restaurant area, a 'traditional pub' area and a front area that make it appear as if you are sat in a beer patio it has something to offer however you enjoy your drinks.

With Bisbee in tow we visited the Birmingham location on opening night and from the moment we walked in we were impressed. Bisbee welcomed the attention and we liked the decor - an industrial style with a clear railway focus that meant there were plenty of things to discover during our visit.

Due to pregnancy we skipped the beer menu but did peruse the vast cocktail menu, Head of Steam REALLY know their drinks! We were kindly offered a virgin version of a number cocktails and enjoyed the strawberry daiquiris so much we ordered 3!

The food decisions were the hardest part of the night. We did plenty of eyeing up other peoples orders before settling on a chicken and ham pie, with mash and musheys and then a halloumi burger with chips. We also added a side of mac and cheese sticks - and so should you. They were so so good!

The full menu can be found here.

The portion sizes were reasonable and the food tasty - I would definitely recommend the pie, super flavourful and jam-packed with filling. Oh and it's a proper pie, not a pastry lid on a bowl!

Next time we will head back for brunch as the menu looked delicious!

After finishing our main course we got a low down on the up and coming events and what's involved in the beer tasting.

We also got to find out that Head of Steam have trained beer sommeliers on hand to offer advice on food and beer pairings as well as what craft beers and cask ales are available.

The fact finding mission gave us a chance to work up an appetite for our dessert, I ordered the strawberry and rhubarb cheesecake and I can honestly say it was one of the best desserts I have ever eaten. It was light, sweet, flavourful and every bite was so good. It was so good that I would be tempted to head in just for that dessert if I needed a reboot while shopping.

One of the highlights of the evening was the service. Everyone we spoke to was lovely, super helpful and knowledgeable.

The only challenge we have found is that as far as we can tell there is no way of booking online and when we did try and walk up it was way too busy to go in with Bisbee. Plus the city centre location means you have to pay to park so it's best to know you have a table guaranteed before you park.

Overall though if you like beer or good food or a pub with a lot going on or all these then Head of Steam is well worth checking out!

http://www.theheadofsteam.co.uk/bars/birmingham

Three Years Of Bisbee!

Three years ago we picked up the best Christmas gift we have ever gotten - Bisbee. Our festive treat!

This year Bisbee has received a haul of Christmas cards and presents that rival ours and we can only imagine it's because everyone who has met Bisbee loves her just as much as we do.

It's fair to say three years in there aren't too many firsts left for Bisbee to experience - but we've continued to travel together, attend numerous pub quizzes, markets, day trips, new cities, new villages, we've been on road trips and stayed over in cabins, houses and flats. It's fair to say wherever we go, if we can, we take Bisbee.

However this December Bisbee did experience her first proper snow.

After initially loving the snow and running around like a crazy thing it didn't take look before the weight of the snow started weighing her down. The snow packed around her tag and before long even her Equafleece was started to turn white. It was at that point that loving went to loathing.

And she got meet Santa Paws for the first time......
It was at Birmingham Dogs Home  who kindly organised a charity day where we could pay a small donation for Bisbee to meet Santa. There was also stalls and entertainment put on to make the 45 minute wait more enjoyable.

It was quite the festive treat - although we may have been into slightly more than Bisbee. I don't think the wet weather helped, as Bisbee isn't the biggest fan of rain at any point. 

As my (S) parents have moved closer to us we even have extra support and Bisbee is loving overnight stays - where she gets her own bedroom as my parents have a spare room.

We can't wait to have many more years with this fluffball - she really is a joy.

Here are just a few posts about Bisbee:

• Our first day video post is here
• A month in and how we were getting on post is here
• Two years of Bisbee post is here
• The moment you realise the love for your dog has reached a new level post here
• Things to consider when getting a dog post here

So there you have it....Merry Christmas from us and the Bisbee

Is Raw Feeding Really Best For Your Dog?!

When we were given the opportunity to try Poppy’s Picnic, raw dog food with a difference, we were really excited and hopeful.

Bisbee has always been an incredibly picky eater – after hearing from the vets that she was underweight numerous times- though we were always trying to get her to eat, we settled on a combination of kibble, wet food mixed in, AND a slice of sandwich chicken for every meal to try to get her to eat, which she still only did begrudgingly. We have daily conversations with her about eating her dinner, and worry about it quite a bit.

We’d wanted to try her on a raw food diet for a while because of the health benefits. We knew with the above combination we weren’t feeding her the most nutritious meal, our focus had been on just trying to get her to eat full stop. So whenever she has been fed proper meat in the past, she has gobbled it up. Would raw meat finally mean that we wouldn’t be pressuring her to eat her dinner?

We hadn’t tried raw previously because of the prep time we believed it would take, the potential cost, and because handling raw meat on a daily basis is not my idea of a good time. When we looked on the Poppy’s Picnic site, we were pleased to see their ‘RAWPLICITY’ system means that the food is all prepared for us – meat mixed together with vegetables and healthy ingredients to give maximum nutrition to the dog with minimal disgust from us, and no cereals or fillers in sight! The cost wasn’t bad at all either. We worked out we’d be spending about £0.80 per day on Bisbee’s food – that is a small price to pay for an eating, happy, healthy dog! I ordered a trial box that had an assortment of chicken, beef and lamb meals right away.

(Excuse the dead plant, but I loved how much effort they went to to hide the package when we weren't home!)

When they arrived in their frozen pack, Bisbee was immediately interested. She seemed to know (or hope!) it was for her, and we were impressed with the adorable packaging as we put each pack into the freezer. We had calculated how much of the food she would need per day based on her weight – and though it looked less than what we currently feed her, we read that dogs need less raw food as it is so high quality, and not filled with cereals etc. Bisbee needs roughly half a pack per day, split over two meals.

We decided to introduce her to Poppy’s Picnic slowly, by putting in a little kibble in with it. When we first put down her bowl with her first meal of Poppy’s Picnic chicken, she looked so suspicious and kept checking with us – was it a mean joke, or an accident, that we had given her actual meat for dinner? With lots of reassurance, she gobbled up the entire meal within the first 10 minutes – which for Bisbee is a record, and for us, a relief!

The next morning, we put down her bowl expecting the same performance. But to our dismay, she didn’t touch it for a few hours. It turned out that the quality food is so filling, that she wasn’t hungry in the morning! We learned to give her a little less, which meant before long she was eating as soon as we put the bowl down, without any encouragement from us – something that had never before happened in the three years we have had her!

 

Another thing we really like about Poppy’s Picnic is the support you get from the company. We found that Bis wouldn’t eat the lamb one (crazy dog, I don’t know many pups that are picky about the type of raw meat they get!), so when we told Rebecca she suggested we mix it in with the chicken or beef, which indeed worked! Dylan, Rebecca, and the team are always on hand to help with answers to questions or suggestions.

If you considering raw  it is well worth checking out the website: Poppy's Picnic , there is a tons of advice, it shares exactly what goes into the food and how they decide what each meal should include. There is also a blog and FAQ question section full of useful info. 

We were very impressed with Poppy’s Picnic, and what it did for Bisbee. We’ve found that she eats more regularly, better quality food, has a bit more energy, and we are relieved that with the system of defrosting one at a time and keeping it covered in the fridge means the kitchen doesn’t smell, and there is minimum handling of the food.

 

We’d recommend you try Poppy’s Picnic for your pup! They’ve kindly given us a 10% off code for you to order your first individual packs with! The code is bisbeelovesfood. If you do give it a go, please let us know! We’ll definitely continue using Poppy’s Picnic for Bisbee’s food.

 Disclaimer: We were given the opportunity to try Poppy's Picnic free of charge, however were under no obligation to provide a positive review - all above opinions and experiences are our own.

For the love of dog!

Have you ever seen this:

When we first watched this we had just got Bisbee and we chuckled. We thought Raj was extreme and that we would never be like that. Oh how wrong we were!

Here's the thing, dog advice articles often talk about how you should talk to your dog, it's good for them.

In fact this article says there are 5 main reasons you should talk to your dog, the main one being:
'While there are many ways to relate to your dog, and not everyone is a chatterbox, in general, people who talk to their dogs tend to show other signs of being closely bonded with their dog'

And it's good for you - in fact people who talk to their dog have a higher level of intelligence and creativity. Check it out here.

Anyway back to the video. So Bisbee is almost 2 and a half and it is official you can play 'Bisbee or Laura'. I don't know how it happened, maybe it's because I work from home, maybe it's because Bisbee is super cute, either way I catch myself saying things that I possibly should keep for Laura.

To give you an idea:
'You're so beautiful'
'You're so clever'
'You're such a grown up, independent lady'
'Shall we snuggle here and chill out - just the two of us'
'You have such a cutey-pa-tootie, you are one fine assed dog'
'You're so soft and cuddly'
'OMG your belly is so soft let me give it kisses'

Here's the thing - i'm not the only one! Laura is exactly the same. I think that makes me feel better. It turns out this dog is just easy to love. 

I mean look at here:

And here;

And here:

And here:

How can you not gush over her.....all the time :)

Two years of Bisbee!

On the 19th of December 2014 we picked up Bisbee Avie, our amazing, beautiful, funny, cocky, charming, entertaining puppy and life hasn't been the same since. It's 2 years since that gotcha day.

When I think about our life I can't imagine it without her. My daily routine when working from home revolves around her - I make sure pre-work calls that she has toys to play with and let her chill out in the kitchen. After my calls I free her and she goes back to roaming the house like it's her Queendom.

She is a guard dog, door bell and people greeter. She loves doing tricks and being part of any action. While Laura practices for choir she will lay on the couch and listen ready with licks of encouragement. When I close a deal or have a successful call she is ready to dance to cheesy music as if her job is to share the joy.

When we cry at TV shows or because we are having hard days she is ready to pounce and lick away the tears or step on us until we stop crying and give her attention.

As a family we are never happier than when all three of us are squashed on the sofa watching something, all getting slightly too warm and Laura and I unable to move from puppy paralysis.

Bisbee has brought smiles to not only friends and family but to complete strangers and we couldn't feel luckier.

Our Mum's adore her - my Mum has a whole new career as a dog walker because the fluff ball made her remember just how great dogs are. In fact if my Mum could only walk Cockapoo's I think her life would be made. As it stands she walks two.

Even our Dad's are in love. My Dad spent a whole 10 minutes fighting her for a penguin cuddly toy and Laura's Dad is often seen play fighting her.

We have a list of people ready and willing to look after her should we need and her pile of Christmas presents is bigger than ours. It's fair to say that our little girl is loved and adored everywhere.

On top of all of this her comic timing is on point, with human like burps she gives feedback on food and with yawns she'll let us know when we are droning on or need to change the subject. Her outfit choices seem to be ever increasing but when she plays a shark so well it's hard to resist buying them :)

She has taught us that working as a team means sharing success and that consistency and dedication will deliver results - even if results are new tricks that are purely for our entertainment. And we couldn't be more grateful.

We are also lucky enough that she loves the car and is happy just to pop out to pick someone up or travel for hours. In a pub she'll nap why we catch up with friends and in crowds she is happy to be held to see the action. I have never met a dog who barely blinks when a marching band in full flow marches past but Bisbee barely notices it.

We now arrange dog holidays/weekends, if new friends have dogs or old friends get dogs it something we actively talk about. We have explored more of our local area and seen more sunsets that in previous years - I can't thank Bisbee enough.

Bisbee's bestie Otis is also a firm fixture in many of our weekends (his Mum's are pretty awesome) and they are quite the adorable double act so we have a constant source of entertainment.

Our phones are filled with 100's of photos of Bisbee and as we follow Cockapoo groups on Facebook just so we can lose hours looking at cute puppy pics.

In fact I can't think of a single downside of owning Bisbee. Here's to many, many, many, many, many more Bisbee filled days.

Happy Christmas from my family to yours!

PRIDE: Are gay rights still relevant?

It's Pride season again and we are prepped and ready!

We are lucky that Birmingham hosts one of the first UK Prides so we don't have to travel far to celebrate. With outfits ready and the sun shining we headed into town and took our place along the parade route.

We were photographed by quite a few people - Bisbee is quite the star- and one of the photos even appeared in a national paper here!

In preparation for Pride we watched MILK - have you seen it?

We had been meaning to watch it since we visited the Castro while in San Francisco and while the rainbow covered area was a great place to visit I had very little idea about it's significance. I had no idea that the streets we were walking on were the scenes of such momentous and historical relevance. In all honesty I had very little of who Harvey Milk was or why he is such a worshiped figure in the LBGT community.

The film was a documentary, educational and informative while bringing Harvey Milk to life. On finishing the film we both sat in silence, it resonated. The fact that we had been to the locations resonated. The fact that the issues highlighted in the film seemed so out of date yet still occur in parts of the world today, resonated.

The fact that Milk made political history in 1977 by becoming the first openly gay man in politics and was supported by Mayor George Moscone has had more of a baring on my life and other LGBT lives than I ever knew.

We are lucky enough to live in a part of the world where the response to 'i'm gay' is usually 'so what?' and having seen the film I will never EVER take that for granted.

While LGBT in the UK and USA are no longer persecuted or deemed 'sick' it is amazing that there are still headlines like this in today's paper:

From Daily Mail 11/11/2015

Or that in countries like Australia marriage equality is STILL to happen and there are still headlines like this:

From Daily Mail 11/11/2015

It is evidence that while we are a world away from what Harvey Milk fought for - stopping a law being implemented that would lead to the firing of gay teachers and anyone who supported them (he won by 75%) we are not far away enough. How was it only 2 years ago that gay marriage was made legal?

The other point that really stuck with me was the line that Milk kept saying 'show them that they know one of us' - what he was referring to was LGBT individuals coming out and showing family and friends that we are one of you, we are the same. We are no different. Being gay shouldn't define you, it is part of you but it is not all of you. It is something that I completely agree with. I am gay but so what?

'Burst down those closet doors once and for all and stand up and start to fight' - Harvey Milk

Some of Briggs arguments - shown in the film - were that having gay teachers in schools would allows them to recruit children to be gay! However it was the Anita Bryant part of the film that I found shocking - her arguments were based in religion. I found it shocking because the it wasn't that long ago in the news that 'The Mormon church ban children of gay parents'. The main line being ' In their new policy manual, the church also said that Mormon same-sex couples will be considered apostates (The term apostasy is used by sociologists to mean renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion) under new church guidelines. '

It proves that while the social battle is being won and the LGBT community is more accepted than ever before there is still a way to go especially when it comes to religion and in parts of the world where Harvey Milk's points still resonate.