A dog called Dexter

Finally the moment we had been waiting for, we were  leaving Battersea Dogs and Cats Home with our new cocker spaniel Goofy.  First challenge: riding in the car.  Our Labrador Millie is a professional journeyer.  Friends told of enduring very upset puppies on their first car trip. Not Millie; on her first car ride, she wasn't phased at all. She sat on my lap for the first few minutes of the journey and then hopped off on to the seat next to me, sighed, and went to sleep.  She has been a happy traveller ever since.

Even as a tiny puppy Millie loved to travel

We now use a crate in the boot of the car to keep the dogs secure. We tried harnesses, but Millie always ended up with a paw in an awkward place.  We popped Goofy into his new car crate and started the drive back to Lincolnshire.  Poor Goofy didn’t look very happy to be in the car at all, and by the time we got to a service station, he was shaking like a leaf. A stroll around the service station seemed to settle him down a bit. Back in the  car crate he would lean his head against its side and close his eyes, looking as if he was praying for the journey to end.  This little chap did not seem destined to be a happy traveller, and he still hates the car, no matter how many treats he is promised.

The staff at Battersea Dogs Home had advised us that it was absolutely fine to change Goofy’s name, as he didn’t really answer to it.  We thought that Goofy didn’t really suit this handsome  spaniel, and by the time we got home we had decided on Dexter. We had been watching the TV show "Dexter"  and thought that Dexter was a cool name. As the TV show was quite dark, we didn’t think many other people would pick the name for their dogs.  Wrong! 

We moved house, our next door neighbours have a dog called Dexter, which leads to no end of confusion when we call our dogs in.  My parents next door neighbours have a cat called Dexter.  We go to an agility class with only two other dogs, one of which is called  Dexter. Everywhere we go, we can guarantee to meet another dog called Dexter.  Although we also like to think that there is no other Dexter quite like ours.