As many of you will know, me and my apprentice, Bear, unusually for dogs who normally bark, enjoy tweeting on a regular basis. This began when the Boss, the late, great, Rolo, a Border Terrier with a penchant for mischief and a lot to say for himself, stumbled across the BTPosse on Twitter, and the rest, as they say, is history! Myself and Bear have 3,627 and 2,320 followers respectively, whilst 'Her Indoors' limps behind on a lowly 1,313. I'm surprised she's got that many to be honest. What has she got to say of interest that doesn't involve us? Still, managing three accounts keeps her on her toes. The only other social media she does is Facebook and she tends to restrict that to people she knows in everyday life.
We have been somewhat distressed therefore, by all the controversy surrounding Twitter, since Elon Musk took over and has made what appear to be some frankly dubious decisions. I really do feel that they just aught to substitute a dog silhouette for the little bird and hand the whole caboodle to the BTPosse to run. We'd sort it in no time. However, the imminent collapse of Twitter has been regularly predicted, and people are leaving to set up accounts on Instagram and Mastodon, which, quite frankly, sounds like a rather nasty medical condition, as in 'I've got a bad case of the mastodons'. We tried Instagram some years ago and we never really got on with it, plus we really can't be bothered to learn a new platform - 'Her Indoors' is of an age where the tech doesn't come that quickly to her and paws are a mixed blessing on technological interfaces. Some people are leaving Twitter citing ethcial concerns about the new owner, but we are not sure any of the other platforms would stand close examination on that front. So the long and short of it is, we are staying put. Twitter might have got a case of avian flu but it can only go one of two ways, so until it is stone-cold dead, we shall continue to tweet into the abyss. We know it is a personal decision but we hope you'll hang on in there with us and just wait and see....
And whilst we are being a bit gloomy, one of the regular occurances on pet social media, is the loss of beloved furs and the grief of their poor hupeeps. Some people still struggle, years after their pet has passed, and, having lost the Boss ouselves, getting on for four years ago now, we know how hard that grieving process can be. 'Her Indoors' is a writing for wellbeing practioner and facilitates sessions in palliative care, so she decided to put her skills to good use and has a written a series of writing activities, ideally spaced over ten weeks, to help with coming to terms with the loss of a pet. She trialed it, with the kind assistance of a few people who have lost their furry friends, and the feedback has been positive. It was difficult to know what to do about payment as 'Her Indoors' wanted it to be accessible for anyone who needs it, but at the same time, we need our noms money, so she hopes she has priced it within reach of most. If it is genuinely too much and you think you would benefit, get in touch and we'll see what can be done. It is available on 'Her Indoors' website as a downloadable PDF here: Pet bereavement
Which, like a dog chasing its tail, brings us round to something a bit more cheerful! The Boss was not only the originator of Twitter in our household, he was also the first blogging fur. From his blog, he got the Sussex Living column, which has, of course, been passed on to me. Our writing voices are really very similar!😉Look out for our December edition and the festive photo that accompanies it. We were very good dogs and it didn't take too many treats! Anyway, the Boss wrote a couple of books: 'The Last Rolo', a year of his life in a series of blog posts or diary entries, and 'Sit, Stay, Roll Over', a spoof training manual, written from a dog's point of view. You can buy both for £10 from 'Her Indoors' website, and over the Black Friday weekend, from 25th-27th November, we'll throw in a free pack of four Christmas cards, featuring the lovely illustrations from the book, by Sally Greenfield, with each two-book order just click here! That's Christmas sorted!
