Yes, they do say that there is a first time for everything, and this week we definitely had a first for us whilst we were out working. Regularly on our travels we come away from customers’ addresses with gifts, people are so kind; they may be in the form of a monetary tip, a bottle of wine, eggs from their hens or flowers or produce from their gardens. But this week was so different, we came away from a customers address with a dog!! Yes, I know that sounds hard to believe, but it is true.

It happened like this; we were at an address in Hadstock just finishing a job when a neighbour of the customer we were doing knocked on the door and asked us to do his chimney and we obliged. He had a year-old Charnwood Aire which was easily swept with the Viper. As we were doing the work we got into conversation with him and his wife and they told us how the wife had recently been very ill in hospital and that the fur on one of their dogs was effecting both her and her husbands breathing as well as slowing her recuperation. After much heart ache they had decided to rehome the dog by sending it to the Woodgreen Animal shelter. The poor dog had started out life as a contraband sniffer dog for the Prison Service, but the Prison Service had let her go and she had ended up with the couple’s som. Unfortunately, he could not keep her when he started to have a family so she ended up with the couple who already had a dog of their own.

So we just couldn’t let her go off to the Woodgreen Animal shelter and ended up bringing her home to meet our two working cockers Millie and Roger. Her she is in the photos, a three-year-old black and white Sprocker called Maggie. She is very well trained and is beautiful. She has settled in so well with Millie and Roger, we are just so pleased. Who would think that chimney sweeping could do this!