Stuart's blog

Stuart Greenland is a DaliMiles enthusiast and the BCDS's DaliMiles Champion
This page is dedicated to Stuart's reports of his excursions with his dogs and his reflections on why DaliMiles specifically - and exercise generally - is good for you and your Dalmatian. Contact Stuart and Jo Greenland at stuartgreenland@hotmail.com



JUNE 2010

Our love for Dalmatians started in 2002 when we met a pathetic 6 month old RSPCA Dalie who needed to be rescued from a kennels in Melton Mowbray. This leggy young pup soon established himself in our household of 2 cats and literally ran rings around our friends’ dogs, which were all about a year older than him. Very fast and very prone to running off Jasper’s 1 hour walk often turned into several hours of searching him out. It was soon realised by me that a 4 mile walk in the morning during the week and up to 10 miles on the weekends was the only way to keep this bouncy pup satisfied.

Only a couple of years old Jasper suddenly gained the Bladder Crystal affliction and had to have an Op to remove a bladder full of Uric Acid Crystals. The ailments began with an ear tumour, a swallowed a wasp, a scratched eye, cut paws, ripped pad, a cut back when our cat used the dog as a scratching post and finally he was poisoned. Living in rural Scotland, I think he picked up some poison bait and went severely down hill. After a day at the vets he was rushed to the Glasgow Veterinary Hospital where he spent 7 days in intensive care whilst receiving 3 blood transfusions. Our poor little Jasper was yellow where the Biliruben, a chemical from the liver, was at a count of 2200 instead of the normal count of 20. He would not eat and we were told that he was too weak and may not pull through, our poor pup was on a drip for his birthday until some 2 weeks later when Jasper came back to us half the weight that he had been. Miraculously he made a full recovery.

The next addition to the pet family was Amber in 2008, as a sprightly 3 year old that was introduced to Jasper at the Scottish Dalmatian Welfare foster home. Amber’s owners had a new baby and the dog had to go! She got on really well with Jasper, but only just with the cats, and settled into our daily routine of beach and forest walks and of course sleeping on our sofas. Much less accident prone, Amber has not had any vet bills until this Christmas when someone ate 2 chocolate oranges and a box of liqueurs. After a vomiting inducing drug was injected to what we thought were 2 Dalmatian choccy eating reprobates, it turned out to be all down to Amber.

Now to the DaliMiles, Jasper (7) and Amber (5) started the DaliMiles challenge in July 2009 after we were introduced to it at the Dalmatian Welfare Funday. After a great day out, Amber winning best bitch plus getting Miss August in the Dalie Calendar and someone laying down the 1000 mile challenge, we came home with lots to talk about. Before we started the challenge Jasper and Amber’s normal morning walk/run was usually at 0615 and about 3-4 miles with me riding my mountain bike. Our walks were easily extended to 5 miles in the morning with longer weekend jaunts and the miles started to quickly stack up.

Good progress was made to approx 800 miles until there was a disruption when I had to go to Afghanistan for 3 months. Obviously the dogs missed me loads, the situation got even worse when my father-in-law passed away in December. My wife went away to sort the arrangements whereby our Dallies had to spend about 2 weeks in kennels and about a month without proper walks, which they hated. Anyway I came back from my trip away and after the Chocolate incident and a limp paw, we built back up to 5 miles a day finishing the 1000 miles in February 2010.