Author: jennifermjames

2022

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Peter and I wish you all the best for a happy, prosperous and, most importantly, a healthy 2022.

We start the year with a story about one of the Agility Team THE RETIREMENT OF PIP.  In the coming months our stories will be about our successes and disappointments on the Agility circuit along with information about the rescues and re-homings. Best Wishes Anita.

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR

“Hello One and All,

Peter and I wish all our clients, supporters and benevoles a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We have all had another turbulent year and hope for a happy and healthy 2022. Take care and keep safe. Anita and Peter

Thank you to the benevoles

Hello All You Benevoles,

What a phenomenal result we got for the Christmas Fayre and Vide Grenier. A BIG, BIG, well, HUGE THANK YOU to the librarians, the jam makers, marquee squad, sellers, tea ladies, artists, knitters, flyer deliverers, convoy of drivers, poster makers, printers, wrappers, packers and unpackers, website and facebook contributors, furniture movers, toy makers, refurbishers, those who sew and crochet, door personnel and photographers and last but not least the cooks. The sale on the 14th was our most successful ever and it is all thanks to your efforts. All at Grande Daze are very grateful. We go into the winter with confidence that we can care for the animals now in the rescue centre and those we have yet to meet. We look forward to our next get together and hope you will continue to support us. You are valuable to us and we treasure you all.

THANK YOU! Anita and Peter and all of the whoof, whoofs, meows and chirps!

OCTOBER

We’ve had a really busy month preparing for the Christmas Fayre & Vide Grenier.

An update on everything will be posted in a week or two. In the meantime you can read PART TWO: WHEN MALCOLM WENT WALKABOUT and a new story about THE PROGRESS OF LUCKY LUKE aka MR. FOX.

More to tell you in a few weeks. Take care. Hope to see you at our Christmas Fayre. We have lots of bargains, recycling on a GRANDE scale, original crafts and artwork.

Anita

Retrobelia

We are delighted to advertise Retrobelia for Ann and Les who are kindly helping Grande Daze with Beady’s Bargains.

Ann Taylor is launching a new enterprise called Retrobelia. Based in Brécé, Ann has a wonderful shop full of vintage items from the 50s, 60s and 70s. She has dedicated a corner to her cat Beady, where there are all kinds of bargains to be found. Proceeds from the sale of Beady’s Bargains go to Grande Daze. There is also a collection box for people to add a few centimes!
We wish Ann and Les every success in their new venture and thank them for their support. Anita

My News to Everyone

Another busy and interesting month. We have articles about 3 of our rescues, Gloria, Mrs. Miggs and Malcolm for you to read NEW ARTICLES

We have good news on the AGILITY page. We are very happy.

I have also, sadly, posted a notice to alert you to possible scam fundraising. You can read this here RESCUE CENTRE or on our HOME page at the bottom of the Rescue Centre column.

We have good news to say that we will be having a Christmas Fair and Bric-a-Brac sale on Sunday, 14th November, 2021. Adverts will be on this Website, our Facebook pages, Posters around the area and flyers will be distributed to let everyone know about this event which will be held in the Salle de Fete at La Bigottière.

click here to view Shop | Magasin

ITEMS FOR SALE AT THE BOITE – BOX BRIC À BRAC

There are no special items on the website this month. We are very grateful to everyone for so many lovely donations and it is difficult to choose things to advertise. Please visit our shop for a browse around. We’re sure that you will find something you didn’t know you needed!

Thank you for reading my news and for supporting us. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Anita

UPDATE ON THE LAST FEW MONTHS

Holidays, events, competitions and returning to as near to normal as possible has delayed our monthly blog and news for the past few months.

THE PHEONIX RISING FROM THE ASHES

Since before the pandemic began our van has needed attention. We felt ashamed driving around in a shabby vehicle that was advertising a caring, respectable, responsible and professional charity assisting needy animals. Seemed to us that it showed if we can’t look after our essential ‘tools of our trade’ how can we look after the animals. Then one of those spooky coincidences happened and Mark Tinworth drove through the gate bringing a donation of no longer needed dog bed and assorted things. It is Mark’s enterprise MT Graphiques of Gorron who achieved a marvellous transformation of our worn out looking van. So, same trusty work horse of a van but new colour and graphics. We now show the world what we are made of and our rescues are groomed and transported in a smart vehicle we are all proud of. We’re really happy with this!

Our shop is open all week and we have lots of new stock for you to see. On our ITEMS FOR SALE at page we have some lovely antique pictures for sale.

VIDE GRENIER

In July we had a wonderful response to our sale at the Salle de Fete in La Bigottiere. Thank you to all our benevoles and a special thank you to everyone who bought our goods and supported us so generously.

Whoops! We lost the photos! Sorry!

Your generosity has helped us to pay some vets bills and provide special dietary needs for 2 of our rescues.

CLUB PROJECT

We go back as far as June when 2 of the Grande Daze benevoles and myself gained our Moniteur Educateur Canin Niveau 1 (Canine Educator/Instructor Level1) and Puppy Instructor Certificates. I’m sure that you will all congratulate us on the achievement.

All 3 of us spent months learning to adapt our expertise to be compatible with the expectations of the French canine training. In fact, to some extent it was a sharing of ideas. Our dogs performed wonderfully and we are all proud of their response to our commands – they were exemplary!

Now we have the official French qualifications and are recognised, our project for this year is to build our Canine Club and to be affiliated at Centrale Canine next year. We are excited and proud to say that once we are affiliated we will be able to organise official agility competitions.

Our aim in the Club is to offer different classes: Puppy Class, Obedience Training, Agility Class and Hooper Class (look out for more information about this). We have operated such classes for some time but new things are being added. We look forward to seeing you at these new training sessions and hope that you will find them as interesting and exciting as we do ourselves.

FUN TUNNELS

We participated in a non-official competition which consisted of tunnels only without any other agility equipment. The dogs taking part were Reboot, Kaos, Okinawa, Fleur and Lucky Luke and what alot of fun we all had. It was interesting to see how the dogs responded in a new ring with people they had never met before and a totally new environment. None of us had ever worked with just tunnels but our dogs performed like it was routine and they almost seemed to be showing off and didn’t need humans to tell them what to do in this ‘game’; they already knew the rules! Some of us were quite surprised at our canine friends abilities! How could we doubt them?

AGILITY RESULTS

We managed to get to compete in the Agility Competitions and increased our standing:

Hera is now Grade 2 Agility Level along with Finn and Pip; who all performed beyond our expectations and made us very proud. These Grande Daze rescued friends showed how wonderful it is to give a dog a new go at life.

These 3 dogs have gained the necessary points to participate at the Selectif of Grand Prix de France. at the end of this month (September). The winners at this event will go through to compete in the Final in a few months time – we are hopeful and working hard to achieve the best possible outcome. We’ll keep you posted.

Izzy and Kodie have the 1st part of Brevet and Fleur is not far behind. Part of the Brevet is a clear round in the agility run and it is necessary to have 3 clear rounds to be upgraded.

29TH AUGUST – SEGRÉ DOG SHOW

Five of our pedigree dogs competed in the above dog show and we were pleased to have really good results for everybody. We all gained a heap of experience and were excited to be in the honours ring.

We had:

2 – Champion of the Breed – Griffon Bruxellois

1 – Excellent and Best in Breed class – Young Jack Russell (made it into the Honours Ring)

1 – 3rd Excellent – English Bull Terrier

and

1 – Prometeur for our youngest participant who was too young to be considered the winner

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG. HOPE TO SEE YOU AT GRANDE DAZE.

TAKE CARE AND KEEP SAFE. ANITA