A few weeks ago I went on a walk up the park with my mum, dad who has Alzheimer’s,and poppy their Border collie.
Probably the smartest dog I’ve known and we’ve had a few collies from working farms.
So we get to the top of the park and my mother and I got talking to a lady for ten minutes and after turning round there was no sign of my dad or Poppy? This in a forest with many multiple trails going off, so we set off separately, to find him and the dog. After half an hour and with about five couples from the public looking we had no joy.
My dads Alzheimer’s is so bad that he panics when parted from my mum but I’ve drilled it into him that if he ever gets lost to ask poppy to go find the car and to follow her as she can find her way back to car even on a walk that’s new to her.
So seriously this is no **** poppy will sometimes mistake other Volkswagen Golfs for my mums esp up town if one goes past.
That particular day though we couldn’t park in the normal place at the bottom of the park and had to park a few streets away. Whilst I was still looking in the woods my mum walked down the park and found her frisbee next to a lone silver Golf. Five minutes later she found poppy and my dad next to our car.
My dad is so bad there’s absolutely no way he could of remembered where the car was and so poppy must of taken him to the silver golf, dropped the frisbee and then led him to our car.
Two things my dad was very confused and had no lead so I was buzzing that he actually followed her.
And secondly Poppy has always been able to recognise VW badges and whilst she never confuses them with a Merc sign, she does occasionally mistake the odd Passat or in this case a silver Golf ( ours is blue ).
You can buy her a new toy like her “honking game bird” tell her the name of it just once ie this is your honking game bird? And she won’t forget lol. No wonder they call em listening dogs.