Rolo The Cambridge Dachshund

I’ve been a bit quiet on here lately and this is the reason why …

Introducing Rolo!!  He’s a mini wire haired dachshund puppy, nearly 12 weeks old now, and he bounded into our lives (on very small legs!) recently.  So I’ve had my hands full caring for him, trying to teach him some niceties of life and generally laughing at his antics.

Of course, we are all totally smitten with him.  The decision to have a dog join the family wasn’t a sudden one.  Our much loved cat Smokey died at the age of 19 just after we arrived in Cambridge and we miss him still.  But we knew we were going to extend the house and obviously building projects and small animals don’t mix.  Last year, I started helping a neighbour with her dachshund and fell in love with this funny, feisty canine.  When my daughter tracked down a litter just before Christmas, we arranged to visit the breeder “just to have a look” and, well, you can imagine the rest!

And now that Rolo is here with us, he’s fitted right in and is teaching me a thing or two as well ….

Rolo greets each new day with unalloyed joy.  He’s never grumpy in the morning.  I need to be up to give him breakfast, which is helping me to break my bad habit of staying up too late and sleeping in.  And particularly at this time of year, seeing dawn break and hearing birdsong is a great way to start the day.

Rolo lives totally in the moment.  He doesn’t worry about yesterday or what will happen tomorrow.  All that matters is the here and now.  Speaking as a lifelong worrier, I find his attitude very refreshing.

Rolo is always curious and sociable even when he’s a little bit afraid, an object lesson for all of us who have to take a deep breath before entering a room at parties.  There’s a whole world out there and he just goes for it.  In the short time he’s been with us, we’ve met lots of lovely new people and dogs and I’m looking forward to meeting many more.

Rolo has an Instagram account (well, of course he does … and he has more followers than me!).  In creating this and posting regularly, I’ve stumbled across a really beautiful side to social media, full of goodwill, helpful tips and dachshunds looking cute.  It is entirely joyous.  If you’d like to follow, you can find him on @rolo_the_cambridge_dachshund

So forgive me if posts on here are a little erratic for the next few weeks.  I’ll try to get the What’s On events listing for March up on time and normal service will be resumed at some point.  In the meantime, I’ll be giving this little guy the best start I can and I myself will be trying to #bemorerolo