"We don't force our dogs to do this. And it always has to be fun for them. Uggie's still enjoying it but he’s getting up there and he's slowing down a little. He's at the stage where he just says, 'I think I want to go and lay in the sun by the pool".
Uggie's Trainer, Sarah Clifford

He recently stole the show at the Golden Globes, despite not winning an award of his own for his performance in The Artist. An internet campaign, Consider Uggie, attempted to persaude the powers that be, that Uggie should get his own recognition for his work. He now looks set to win the first ever Golden Collar Award created by Dog News Daily, with the awards ceremony in February.

Uggie stole the show at the Golden Globes recently

Uggie will still be available for shorter projects such as TV advertisements, and small film parts, but will be leaving the big roles to his younger brother Dash who looks set to follow in the same career path!

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There’s too many variables

With so many variables involved in just getting a quote, let alone renewals, specific conditions, and the unique nature of individual cases, it makes it near on impossible to get a reliable overview of an insurance company based on online reviews. Reviews will usually consist of factors such as price, claims and customer service, the only rating that may carry any value is possibly customer service.

Price for pet insurance varies dependant on breed, gender, post code location, age and previous conditions, if you consider the huge variety of policies available with all the various extras, comparing policies, let alone entire pet insurers by price, is an impossible judgement to make.

It’s a similar story for reviewing claims, each case is individual, with a lot of factors involved, often including a third party in the form of the Vet if a claim is handled direct. If you search, you will find both positive and negative reviews for every insurer.

Anonymity of the Internet

We're not suggesting Pets are posting reviews, but it is worth considering the anonymous nature of review sites.

The only place you’re going to find a collection of pet insurance reviews is online, the big problem with this is the anonymous nature of many review sites. With most sites only having a handful of reviews for each insurer all it would take is a couple of extra reviews to throw the balance in favour of one company. Whilst we would like to believe every review is genuine, it’s worth considering how easy it might be for a company to ‘downgrade’ their competitors.

Emotions may affect reviews

Pets are considered by most to be a member of the family, therefore protecting them is a natural instinct. When a pet is unwell and requiring treatment it’s naturally going to cause stress and worry for the owner, this could quite easily affect their judgement on how an insurer has helped them. Whilst it’s easy to be highly subjective with other financial products such as car insurance, offering feedback on something so close to home, is naturally not going to be as impartial.

“When they were first born, all we we doing was feeding them. By the time we had fed the last one, it was time to go back to the first one. When Pebbles was well enough, she played her part, though she remains a little wary. She’s great with them now, she goes in to just feed them and other than that she keeps away from them“.
Kay Sullivan

The family had no plans to become dalmatian breeders when they put Pebbles together with another dalmatian, it was simply to try and take her mind of their recent loss of another family dog. One of the pups has already found a potential new owner all the way in Italy, from a Facebook friend of the Sullivan family.

Daughter Cerys playing with a few of the pups

They hope to keep a couple of them, and in the meantime Kay, husband Neil and their four children have their hands full in helping Pebbles to take care of this larger than life litter.

Belinda raced Indie straight to the Vets when she had noticed he didn’t seem to be quite himself, and started to breathe more heavily. Once at the Vets, Indie underwent x-rays, when it was confirmed beyond doubt that he had in fact swallowed the car. The images of the jaguar car lodged in Indie’s stomach showed the car intact, and the decision was made to operate to remove the car before it reached his intestines, where it may have become lodged and been fatal.

Luckily for Indie, and his owners, the operation was a success, and thanks to speedy reactions all round Indie is now recovering well at home. The family have kept the car which is now complete with bubbled paintwork from Indie’s stomach acid! The car originally came form a party bag at a friend’s wedding the day before and was an instant hit with the kids, and Indie alike.

Initially Junior had several trips to the Vets, to remove eyelashes as they started to irritate his eyes – the condition called entropion did not improve despite the eyelash removals, and could have led to permanent loss of sight if untreated. Junior was then referred to a specialist Vet, Gary Lewin, who was able to then perform the facelift on Junior, which included a 3 hour operation and one of the most difficult procedures Gary had ever performed due to the size of Junior and the amount of skin he had to remove.

The operation was a success with all Juniors excess skin removed, he has been able to see clearly since. Denise and David say he has been so much better since the operation as his condition used to make him grumpy, especially with other dogs. Junior now seems a much happier dog and much more mischievous like he should be for his breed and age. The couple say they have had everything from remote controls to PC mice go missing from their home, all of which have later been found chewed up in the garden!

David said he started training Beau when he laid out some dog biscuits and rewarded him them when he barked the correct number of biscuits. Beau then became accustomed to this and David has continued to teach him as he seemed to pick it up so quickly. Since then he went on to count to ten, answer questions about sports scores, read written sums, and can even count in Spanish!?

Once he has barked the answer Beau always puts his ears upright after his final bark, but, if David fails to bring bring treats for his work he quickly loses interest after a couple of questions. Beau can even carry on the trick once David had left the room as long as treats are involved. Friends of the family who were suspicious of Davids claims have tested Beau themselves, only to agree he is infact a dog genius!

Beau lives with David, Mum Patti and his daughter Melissa, split between the year with the summer at David and Patti’s and with Melissa the rest of the year. David took on Beau when his daughter Melissa was a student, she had found Beau on her doorstep and took him in.

Snowy settled in well at her new home with Lynne, until an unfortunate event where she escaped from the garden after being scared by passing school children. It was this event that prompted Lynne to try hand signals, after chasing her down the road and realizing she wouldn’t respond to any amount of shouting or calling. Luckily Snowy responded instantly to Lynne’s hand signals, and Lynne, with the help of a family friend, has gone on to teach Snowy a selection of signalled commands she uses on a daily basis, including; come here, on my lap, home, bedtime, no, and food.

It’s clear Snowy has come on a long way since her shelter days, and it’s great to see such a happy ending for both Snowy & Lynne.

Hampshire Fire service’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team came straight to Ivy’s rescue and brought with them flexible search cameras and listening devices, which was the same equipment that been used to rescue victims of Japan and New Zealand’s recent earthquakes. The equipment was used to aid with her rescue as they could monitor where she was and how she was doing whilst digging, to help ensure that she did not suffer any further injuries.

After 2 hours of digging the rescue team managed to see Ivy’s face, but she was still trapped in the tight tunnel as her hips and legs were underneath her chest, so she was unable to climb or claw her way out. They gave her some water whilst they slowly removed the soil around her to finally be able to release her up and out the hole.

She was taken straight to the Vets where she was placed on a drip overnight to replace fluids she had lost from not being able to eat or drink for four days. She is now back to health and making a full recovery at her home.