K9 Fitness Ltd

At the beginning of 2012 I couldn’t run. In fact even walking up a hill would have me out of breath reaching for my inhaler! Now I race with dogs. Read on to hear my story.

I have always loved dogs, my first dog was a Black and Tan German Shepherd when I was about nine years old. Years later as I left home my parents had a lovely Cocker Spaniel called Toxie. She was a sweet girl and provided years of pleasure to our family.

As an adult in my late 20s, the urge to have another German Shepherd was too great and I adopted Shannon, a beautiful white long haired German Shepherd as a puppy. Although I would take Shannon out for long walks the only thing running was her. In November 2005, when Shannon was aged just 7½ years, cancer took her away from me and I felt lost inside.

For a couple of years we couldn’t bring ourselves to replace Shannon, she was irreplaceable. We then saw a Border Collie called Pippin that needed rescuing. We brought her home but it soon became apparent that our, then three year old, son was autistic and unable to treat Pippin with the respect she deserved. Pippin went to a lovely lady called Rachel who we are still friends with after all these years. Pippin lived to 13 years old with Rachel and had a wonderful life. They even visited us for lovely walks on the beach.

A year after Pippin was rehomed we started to research what type of dog would be ideal to fit in with our family. We came up with Miniature Schnauzers! We adopted Jessie as a 10 week old puppy. She was perfect, fitted in so well and was so good with Robbie and vice versa. Since then we have Isla and Bella too – there are two years between each of them.  Update:  Sadly we lost our dear Jessie to cancer in 2019, she was just 11 years old and is sorely missed by us all – dogs and humans!  Update: Sadly we also lost our Isla to cancer in 2021, we were devastated.  She is now buried in the front garden with Jessie’s ashes.

At the end of 2010 a massive shock turned my world upside down; my father was diagnosed with a type of Motor Neurone Disease – ALS. The symptoms started one month after his retirement at 65. Over the years I have watched how this has taken his body away from him. Dad now relies 100% on wonderful carers in his care home plus visits from his family and friends and it is heart breaking to see his deterioration. Dad is an amazing man and will always be my inspiration and my strength. Update:  We lost my lovely Dad on the 14th February 2020, in the end it wasn’t the ALS that took him from us, it was a sudden aggressive lung tumour and took him so quickly from us.  I miss him so much it hurts, the dogs have helped me tremendously but there are still moments when it seems unbearable!

This shock changed my outlook on life and jump started me into action. After numerous fundraising activities to raise funds for stem cell treatment for my Dad, this went ahead successfully. There seemed to be slight improvement. However, after a while the symptoms of ALS became more obvious and although Dad’s immune system seemed quite strong, it was devastatingly becoming clear that the disease was winning.

Whilst all this was going on I was determined that if anything like that ever happened to me I wanted to be able to fight it from all directions, so in May 2012 I changed my diet to suit my blood type which meant no more animal protein, no gluten, none of the Deadly Nightshade family. I instantly started to feel better (having suffered with Fibromyalgia for a few years) and signed up with a personal trainer, Kali. I told Kali “Don’t ever try to make me run, I can’t, never could and never will!” In September 2012 we were power-walking through the woods when I suddenly had the urge to run, so I did! A few weeks later, I entered my first 5km race, then 2 weeks after that my first 10km and then a week later my first Brutal10 race. I loved it! I did ParkRuns as I was able to run with Jessie, my Mini-Schnauzer and then I started to run with sister’s bigger rescue dogs in various Canicross races. In December 2012 I took my last tablet for my Fibromyalgia and have been symptom free ever since.

The changes continued – in 2014 we moved house to live by the sea where I am at my most content. We set up K9 Fitness in October 2015 and it has gone from strength to strength. I am absolutely loving the work I do with clients’ dogs and am fully committed to helping dogs who need the extra boost in their lives. When I run, it’s like a part of my Dad is running with me; it makes me feel free and I embrace the different types of dogs that I run with. K9 Fitness is about giving your dogs the life they need to be happy. Many of our clients become close friends and come to events we hold – we are like a big doggy family!

At the same time we were setting up K9 Fitness we also adopted another dog, Keni, who was approximately 2 years old at the time.  After doing a DNA test we found out that Keni is half German Shepherd, quarter Samoyed and quarter Black Retriever.  This helped us to understand our troubled rescue boy a bit more, you see Keni was showing reactivity after living with us for a few days.  This is probably as a result of being abused then thrown out onto the streets and having to fend for himself and protect himself.  He had a broken ear and also (after X Rays due to a ruptured Cruciate Ligament) we discovered he had an air rifle pellet in his backside.   We engaged the services of Dog Behaviourist Miranda at Sussex County Dog Training and made huge progress with Keni. 

This improvement means that we are able to introduce new dogs to Keni in a particular way, he knows what to do and does it happily thus gaining lots of doggy friends.  We have increased our services which Keni embraces.  We do a meet and greet out on our street or on a walk with him and a another dog and, as mentioned before, Keni knows what’s going to happen as soon as we start the process and genuinely seems happy to meet another dog.  We still have a few issues when out on walks if he comes face to face with a strange dog but even that has improved dramatically as he doesn’t want conflict – he avoids eye contact where possible and walks on.  

Keni has raced with me a lot over the years that we’ve had him.  We even came 2nd overall in the BSA (British Sleddog Activities) championships in the season (2018-2019) – this was in the 2 Dog Scoot category along with client doggy Bruno the German Short-haired Pointer.  A very proud dog mum right here!  Keni has now retired due to an arthritic back leg which was fused with a plate in 2021.  Unfortunately the plate didn’t agree with him and was removed again 7 months later, he still limps but is much happier and pain free.

We now also have Spirit who is almost 3 years old.  She has been a challenging but rewarding dog and we love her so much.  She came to us just before the first Covid 19 Lockdown so unfortunately wasn’t socialised much resulting in human shyness.  She absolutely loves puppies and looks after them like a mother would.  I still hope to race with her albeit starting at the back when there are less humans near the start line, wish us luck!