In August 2004 we decided to take Barley skiing with us to Austria as the pet passport scheme was now available. So she was jabbed with rabies vaccine, tested and 6 months later got her very own passport.

We packed her up with the ski’s, boots, gloves, hats etc etc and took her to France on the ferry, she behaved perfectly for the 1000 mile drive down to Austria.

We arrived at 9pm and spent 2 hours driving round in circles until we finally found the chalet half way up a mountain road. The car was half a mile down the track and was later towed up by the owners 4x4 obviously purpose bought for the territory. You could see the smirk on their faces as they watched the stupid english people who had tried to scale Everest in a Renault Clio.


Barley meanwhile developed a personality disorder and decided that being obedient was no fun. Any lessons she learnt were out the window and Barley reverted back to a 4 month old pup (apart from the piddling everywhere bit obviously)
SNOW was the problem, she loved it!!
She could dive, slide, piddle on it and turn it yellow. The stretchy lead we invested in lasted 2 hours into the holiday. We tried one tug of it, whereby she turned round snipped it neatly with her teeth and carried on in the direction she preferred.

Daytimes she was pretty good, as we left her for hours to ski up and down mountains. We took her on a couple of occasions to the ski slopes much to the delight (horror) of the local skiers. There was no need for a purpose built snowboard obstacle course when we had supplied a yellow labrador cavorting across the mountain trails in front of them at 30 mph. We liked to think we were adding to the adrenaline rush for these local daredevils...well that's our excuse for not being able to shackle our once well behaved pet that had now escaped and was sat halfway up the mountain jeering at us..

'The Nightlife'

Unfortunately Barleys alter ego emerged at night also and the long walk down the mountain track to the bar at the bottom was rarely uneventful, partly due to the fact there were several cats living on the remote road, which Barley would pursue avidly. There were also strange noises in the silent lane we used to walk down which we wrote off as rabbits and birds in the dark, but we secretly thought were snow leopards and mountain wolves out to get us (we have a vivid imagination after a couple of glasses of schnapps)

When she got to the local bar she excelled – The first time we went to the bar we were met by the local villagers. In fact all the people were a bit strange but they thought we were weirder still. We hadn’t booked a pre-packaged holiday but had to botch together a dog friendly ski trip, hence there were no other English in the village.

On walking in, the chef Andy, took barleys collar and lead off straight away and said ‘NO! Naked!’ Evidently dogs shouldn’t be restricted, so Barley had free roam of the bar. In fairness Andy was slightly deranged and not a typical example of all the villagers. He was quite proud of the fact that he had been the one to introduce cannabis to his mates in the village and I think his brain was slightly addled from the effects of it. He told us all about his granddads schnapps which they used to prime with cannabis as well.

Anyway, Barley roamed about the bar and made a lot of friends, unfortunately the red velvet seats were a lovely shade of yellow hair by the end of the night. The bar was extremely warm, and due to the heating Barley decided to go into full moult. We used to discreetly go round trying to scoop up piles of mini barleys off the seating.

Barley would often sit with a nutty german woman who had a mountain rescue dog at home (we never saw it, evidently it was always resting. There must be a lot of avalanches up them mountains to keep him so occupied) She used to talk german to her all night and Barley would sit mesmorised by her (well actually she was mesmorised by the biscuit barrel next to her on the bar which was full of marrowbone treats)

Romance..

Barley also had ulterior motives with her love of coming to this bar, in the shape of Bob Marley, Andy’s Airedale hound. Quite how a drug addict in an Austrian village ended up with this breed I’m not really sure. Anyway Barley fully condoned the holiday romance principle and trotted around like Jodie Marsh (wearing her collar as a bra etc) flaunting herself at Bob. Bob never really seemed that keen, but Barleys not a girl to give in easily.

The locals

Andy used to keep me and Steve regularly on our toes. One night he came over with a bottle of blackcurrant schnapps he had made. Poured us a glass each and told us drink it up. By now we knew about the cannabis special and were slightly concerned but didn’t like to look inhospitable. We didn’t really want to disrespect granddad either as evidently he was Hitlers right hand man, and we weren’t messing him about. So we drank it, and other than getting pretty p*ssed, we didn’t see yeti’s on the way home, didn’t decide Barley was turning into a cable car or anything amiss, so presume it was cannabis free.

The next night he told us he would take us sledging after work. We were terrified, we had hooked up with the local drug baron and were scared he was going to rob Barley and keep her in Bob Marleys harem. Fortunately when we went back the next night (we didn’t have much choice there were only 2 bars in the village that did food and the other shut at 8pm) Andy was so off his head he had forgot all about it.

At the vets

Before Barley could travel back into the UK she had to have a tick/tapeworm treatment. Harder than it sounds. We had sourced the vet, checked they were open beforehand and dutifully went there 24 hours before travelling home. Barley can be quite obstinate and has a slightly discerning palate. Which didn’t include big yellow vile tasting tablets. The female Austrian vet was very nice and wrapped the yummy concoction inside a dog biscuit. Barley ate the biscuit and spat the frothing yellow monster on the floor.
Plan B. Austrian vet fetches husband who has ‘very long fingers and no trouble getting tablet down dogs throat’. Unfortunately hubbys fingers weren’t long enuf and yellow frothing table came flying across surgery again.
Plan C. Steve and me sit on Barley, Austrian vet holds Barleys head, Austrian vets husband forces Barleys mouth open and what remains of the frothing slimy spittle covered tablet is put into barleys mouth.
Hooray!!
Boo!! 2 seconds later frothy tablet is now dissolved on floor…(alongside steve who at some stage had managed to fly across the surgery and land on the weighing scales in a heap)

Austrian vet decides that she probably had more than enough in the micro tablet she had swallowed, so she would fill the paperwork in anyway. She justified it with the logic that tick and tapeworms were more of a summer problem and were unlikely to be around in the sub zero temperatures we were having anyway.

Looking ahead

We returned to the same village 2 years later, and revisited the bar which was still being run by Andy’s family. Unfortunately Andy was in rehab and the only reminder of him was a forlorn Bob Marley walking around the village, 'naked' of course....

Barley was happy to rekindle her romance with Bob, but being the flirt she is, and in aid of foreign relations, she also moved onto a rather tasty looking mountain dog, whom I believe she still writes the occasional postcard to…