Chris Claridge | Managing Director

  Pet | Monty (Dog)

I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, I mean dog. I have had a lifelong experience with dogs, but generally in a working capacity. They chased the sheep, I shouted at them; they chased the sheep the wrong way, I swore at them; they chased the sheep in the wrong way again, I shot at the dog. Well, actually no, but my uncle did. Dogs were fed a quarter of a sheep once every 2 days and thrown in the stream to clean them.

Therefore when my wife and daughter wanted to buy a dog I was most reticent. I had visions of a smelly stinky dog rolling about inside and in my car. My idea of dogs were they were something you threw things at, swore at and once a month gave them a pat. My wife and daughter swore that they would get a lovely clean small dog that would have no impact on the house. They brought home a sheepdog. He has all the rancid smells that I remember from my years of looking after sheep dogs. His breath will peel paint! I even christened him poo-lips to give you some idea of how bad his breath is.

Poo-lips now lives inside underneath the stairs. His hairs are over all our cars. He goes mountain biking and running with us and immediately leaps in whatever noxious puddle he can find. The result is you can barely approach him his smell is so bad. But we love him. I’ve learned to embrace the smell of dog. The result is we have an unbelievable loyal dog who loves the children to bits. He’s overjoyed the minute I walk in the door and tries to asphyxiate me with his breath and share with me his latest piece of unspeakable matter attached to his fur.

Rik Unthank | Senior Web Programmer

  Pet | Fish A and Fish B (Goldfish)

I’ve never been a pet person, never had any as a kid, so I’ve not been inclined to get one as an adult. Life changes though, and in becoming a husband and later a father you have to start thinking about people other than yourself, humf. So we decided to get a pet ‘for the Kids’. What better an introduction to petdom then a fish, a goldfish at that. How tricky can they be to look after, I could even lay my hands on a free a tank.

So after a quick trip to the pet store we had gravel, weed, a replica skull with a hole in the back! and two small gold fish, who where only half gold! For security and to keep the answer to my online banking, forgotten password retrieval question secret, I’ll call them fish A and fish B. What stories can I tell you about my time with them, well what do you expect, they swam around the tank, and sometimes they went through the skull. They swam to the surface when it was feeding time, that’s all they did. Fish A eventually signalled his/her desire to go to fishy heaven by swimming, actually more floating on its back. Off he/she went to the bottom of the garden under the vegetable patch. Closely followed by Fish B days later.