Wheels

 After much reading I not only decided that a wheeled cart was the best next step for Holly but I found a fairly local company that made them. Local in this case was 75 miles away near Bridlington, but as I had only found three UK based manufacturers this wasn't too bad, they were still in Yorkshire, even if it was a different riding.


I sent a great long email off to them with lots and lots of questions, covering everything you could imagine and a lot of other strange things as well. One of the odder questions was Would I need to carry a puncture repair kit with me on walks? The answers came back very quickly and the answer to the puncture repair kit was no, the wheels were solid, similar to those found on wheelie bins.

One Sunday afternoon my Dad and I spent an hour or so measuring and re-measuring and weighing Holly. There were instructions on the website about what measurements you needed to take, so we measured everything in both metric and imperial, twice for each measurement. we then converted metric to imperial and vice-versa to check we had everything right. Can you tell we both have science/engineering backgrounds? We decided against subjecting Holly to being picked up and held as we wobbled on the bathroom scales. So she and I took a trip to the local pet supermarket where they have some scales that she could stand on, she also got a bad of exceedingly smelly dried tripe treats and a new squeaky toy for being a good girl.

The next day I filled in the order form and sent it off. Ten days later a huge box arrived in the post.

The cats were thrilled with the box and after I cut a few extra holes in it spent many happy hours each day playing in, on and around the box before it eventually could stand the strain no more and collapsed (Olaf weighs in at around 5.5Kg and Linus at about 6.5Kg).

While the cats were occupied with the box Holly and I were busy adjusting straps and practicing getting her into and out of the wheeled cart in the warm and (more importantly) dry kitchen before we went out for a walk.

As well as the wheels I also got her some boots to protect her feet as she was occasionally dragging them when the wobble wasn't enough to fall over but too much for a normal step forwards.

The wheels came from Dog-Mobile https://www.dogmobile-online.com/
The boots are Grip-Trex All Terrain Boots and were ordered from http://www.caninespirit.co.uk/
I actually ended up getting 3 pairs of boots (and socks), one pair for wearing, one pair drying after being washed at the end of that days walks, and one pair being re-coated.

Because she dragged her feet the boots started to wear, so after dropping the canine spirit people an email I took their advise and bought some Shoe Goo to give the boots a protective coat. Once again I found a local supplier who was a little concerned with how much Shoe Goo I bought until I showed him a photo of Holly in her wheels and a pair of boots before and after a walk. I use http://www.division24.co.uk/ who are just a few miles away.