Meet Heather Hoyle

I was 10 years old when our family collie, Jenny, gave birth to a litter. I'd been desperate for a dog of my own to train and love for years but my parents made sure I earned my stripes and proved my commitment by helping with every aspect of raising the pups, from feeding to socialising, grooming, desensitising, cleaning their pen out and helping to find the right future owners. My big brother did part of his MSc in puppy development, so we measured and monitored every pup and tracked all aspects of their growth and cognitive development. I'll never forget those magical, manic, intensely rewarding 8 weeks. When I had children of my own, I knew that learning to look after and nurture a litter of pups from birth was one the most formative and brilliant challenges I could let them experience. They've both been fantastic, from assisting at 3:30am when they started to arrive to night-time toilet training breaks. The hardest part is coming up; letting go of six of our new family members. We are keeping one pup, but they have bonded with them all and need to know that future owners will be happy to stay in touch and maybe meet up now and then, if distance allows. I've done this with Frida's littermates and its been lovely to watch them all grow up with their fantastic families.