About

My name is Sassy. I am a white fluffy golden retriever – poodle cross. We are known as Golden Doodles in the UK and US. But in Australia, where I was born, we are called Groodles.

My Mum, Ingrid, set up this blog for me so that I could write about my adventures while travelling in Europe this year. Having given birth to eight puppies in late 2013 you will appreciate that I have quite a large network of family and friends to keep up with.

I arrived in Paris on Friday the 29^th of May 2015 on flight MH20 via Kuala Lumpur. My Mum and Dad, Geoff, had been very anxious about my arrival worried that maybe they had done the wrong thing in bringing me on their European sojourn. I heard Mum say that some people thought they were crazy for even considering it. But another friend said it was more ‘crazy romantic’. I agree.

Going back a bit

I knew something was afoot when they started to pack their suitcases again a few months back. This usually means that my parents’ friends called Annie and Neville come and stay at our place in Clovelly to look after me while they are off gallivanting in exotic places far away. I usually skulk around a bit before they go, but I really like Annie and Neville (who are a bit younger and fitter than my parents, so take me on more walks!) so am fine with it. But this time they also started to pack everything else up until the house was completely empty. So I started to become a bit worried.

But then they took the suitcases and we went to stay at our other place in Bundeena, and I thought ‘ahhh, we are going to live there instead’.  I was actually pretty pleased about this, Bundeena being my spiritual home. This is because it was the first place my Mum brought me after picking me up at Sydney airport back when I was just an 8-week old pup back in late 2008. I lived there for the first few months while my Mum wrote her doctoral thesis.

So yes, I started flying on planes at a very young age, although that was just from Brisbane on a much smaller plane compared to this last one. Our Bundeena place is also right on the beach, where I can swim and run, and swim and run, which I REALLY love. That is as long as the council rangers are not about. (I was apprehended for doing this once a few years back for which my Mum appeared on my behalf in the local court. However that’s another story for another time.)

Then, just a few weeks later, my parents started packing up all the furniture there too, until it was completely empty too. I was getting more anxious by this stage, even though as my parents will tell you, I am normally a very chilled out dog (or ‘chien’ as they now like to refer to me, smiling like that’s somehow amusing for some reason).

We then drove all the way back up to Clovelly, the same suitcases in tow, to stay with Kobe’s parents who live just around the block from our place there. Kobe is one of my sons who I am especially fond of. He kisses me a lot, which I really love. We like to frolic around a lot together too, although I’ve noticed that he is a bit faster than me these days, so I have to take shortcuts to keep up. I am a rather clever chien too. Mum says it was her upbringing, but poodles and golden retrievers are both well known to be very intelligent breeds. So you can imagine how smart the combo is!

I concluded that we must be downsizing big time. But hey, that was fine with me. Living with Kobe’s human parents, Lisa and David, would be fun. They take Kobe and their other dog, Max, walking and swimming EVERY day, sometimes TWICE! So I figured I would get to go along too, which would be really good. But then the very next day an awful thing happened.

Mum and Dad were pacing around looking very stressed from the moment they got up, checking their watches constantly. I decided to lay low with Kobe (yeah, he takes after his Dad, Roley, who is a full golden retriever). I think Kobe also knew something pretty big was happening.

 

Then I overheard Mum making a phone call in that slightly scary voice she sometimes assumes, saying: ‘OK, but I will be ringing you again if the courier hasn’t arrived in the next 20 minutes as we are departing for the airport ourselves to catch a plane’.  I didn’t know what a courier was, but it didn’t sound good.

Sure enough, a man arrived soon afterwards in a van, which had another dog in a smaller cage in the back. Mum and Dad still looked pretty stressed but relieved at the same time. Here’s Mum taking me out to the van, holding my Rabies Vaccination Certificate, which traveled with me. Kobe is watching in front.

 

 

They were patting me and kissing me; saying good bye while telling me that there was nothing to worry about and they would see me again very soon. NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT? I was being taken away goodness knows where alongside some other dog I had never met…But the man was very friendly so I put on a brave face, obeying my Mum when she told me to jump up into the other cage in the back of the van. My parents’ worried eyes did nothing to reassure me, but I do trust that they know what is best for me. So I crossed my paws and hoped things would all work out OK. I slept on my own in the cage that night, don’t know where.

 

The next morning they put me into a wooden crate along with my pink towel (a present from my Grandmum), some of my favourite toys, and one of Mum’s and one of Dad’s T shirts, which smelt like they needed a good wash. Apparently my vet, Dr Julia, told them that doing this would make me feel more at home. But I’m not so sure anything could have made me feel at home in these dire circumstances. Things were just going from weird to weirder.

I was then taken to Sydney airport, but a different part to the domestic terminal where I had arrived at all those years ago. My crate was put on a conveyor belt and up we went through a big gaping door into the bottom of a really huge plane. There were some other animals on board too, but thankfully no horses. I don’t think I could have coped with that…I just hate horses, barking at them whenever they come on the TV, which scares them off. So I just blocked everything out, keeping to myself, while praying that my Mum and Dad would somehow be there when they took me off this big plane. And phew, that’s exactly what came to pass.

I arrived in this place called Paris some 24 hours later, although strangely it was morning when it should have been the evening by my calculations, but no matter. They then transferred me in my crate using a fork lift, out onto a concrete driveway. See my lead strapped to the top!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there they both were – cooing at me, trying to pat me through the grate, while looking at each other with gooey expressions of relief that I have never seen them exchange before. Talk about crazy romantic!

There was just one problem. My crate had these plastic thingies preventing it from being opened to let me out. I’d have to say that by this stage I was REALLY wanting to be let out for personal reasons. Thankfully a woman standing outside the cargo terminal having a cigarette clocked the situation and came to my rescue, burning the plastic thingies with her cigarette lighter so that I could be freed.

Mum and Dad were so excited, wanting hug and cuddle me but I said ‘whoa, first things first’ and proceeded to do a numero deux right there and then. My Mum actually took a photo of this but agreed not to post it on this website out of respect for my dignity (sometimes I think humans just don’t understand how embarrassing it is for us dogs not to be able to do these things in private).

 

 

 

 

Next thing a big black car turned up, which my parents said was just like a British cab, and off we went in what turned out to be a Dog Taxi to what would be our home in the Marais area of Paris, for the next 9 days (with a really nice big comfy bed!).