Boris the Dalmatian

At the end of July, while Jane was here last, we took delivery of the latest member of our dog pack – a 3 month old pedigree Dalmatian puppy that we have named “Boris” – not named after the infamous British Brexit politician, but more as a fun name with an Eastern European flavour (although our Bulgarian friends tell us that Boris is considered to be a Russian name).  Anyway, his pedigree name is “Dalmagic Dotty Spotty” (Sire: Farfalla Tsvetok Lotosa Dam: Dalmagic Ace of Cake out of the Dalmagic Kennels run by our new friends Aleksandra Ivanova and Веселин Павлов in Sofia) and he was born on 22 April 2016.

The decision to get Boris wasn’t tough but it had been 3 years in the actual realisation.  We got our very first Dalmatian, Sam, within weeks of getting married back in 1981.  This year we celebrated 35 years of marriage and Boris was our present to ourselves and – very likely – he will be our last ever Dalmatian. He is everything a Dalmatian should be plus he seems to have some good learning skills – he just may be the best trained and most responsive Dalmatian we have ever had in the Truscott family!

Our Light Sussex Chickens

This month (August) we collected the first members of our poultry flock, five very handsome Light Sussex chickens.  We have been very fortunate to have made friends with Dave Brunger who, in addition to being a great animal artist (see this post), has a lot of valuable experience of living in Bulgaria and has successfully raised a small flock of Light Sussex chickens and Indian Runner ducks and has recently started to keep, raise and produce cheese from Anglo-Nubian goats.

Our original plan was to get a breeding trio of a cockerel and 2 hens, but Dave persuaded us to take two more of his (excess) cockerels as meat birds!  We will let you know how they taste later in the year.

You can read Dave’s blog here – a great insight into living in Bulgaria and a good read.  Dave is a very knowledgeable and inspirational man that we respect greatly and are pleased to call a friend. Dave also has a site for his art and I encourage you to visit it.

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