03/09/2026
Rochester, 30th July – 6th August 2026 💜
Time for a very overdue introduction to three gorgeous little characters from one of my pet sits … meet Snowball, Bella & Bubbles! 🥰
💜 Bella 💜
First up is the eldest of my little Rochester trio, the absolutely gorgeous Bella, a beautiful senior Staffordshire Bull Terrier with possibly some of the sweetest eyes you’ll ever see. 🥹🐶
Don’t let the word senior fool you, though — Bella certainly hadn’t received the memo! 😂 This girl LOVES to play. Whether she was chasing a ball or charging around the house after her little sister Snowball, she was always ready to join in with whatever fun was happening.
But Bella’s greatest love? WALKIES. 😂😍
Merely picking up the leads was enough to send her into such a state of excitement that actually getting her harness onto her became an event in itself. 🤦🏼♀️😂 There’s a particular challenge involved in putting a harness on a Staffordshire Bull Terrier who has temporarily transformed into a wriggling ball of pure joy!
Once we finally made it through the front door, though, all the pre-walk chaos was completely worth it. 💜 Bella was an absolute walk fiend — nose down, sniffing everything, exploring everywhere and thoroughly enjoying every minute of being out and about. Seeing just how happy her walks made her was adorable. 🥰🐾
At home she was an absolute sweetheart, too. She was wonderfully easy to care for and feed, and when bedtime rolled around, the energetic little adventurer disappeared and out came Bella the cuddle bug. 🥹💕 There’s nothing quite like finishing a day’s pet sitting with a sleepy Staffy snuggled up beside you.
And then, on my final day, Bella decided to make leaving considerably harder than it already was. 🥲 She was whining as I prepared to go and genuinely seemed as though she didn’t want her temporary human disappearing on her.
So, of course, I gave her lots of love and made all three of them a promise before I left:
I’ll be back. 🥹💜
And I very much hope I will be, because gorgeous Bella was an absolute pleasure to look after
🐶🐾💕
🤍 Snowball 🤍
Next up is Bella’s little sister, the utterly bonkers and absolutely gorgeous Snowball — who can probably best be described as ADHD personified in terrier form. 😂🤦🏼♀️
Snowball is SO visually striking. She’s almost completely snow white (hence the name! ☃️), with the cutest brown markings on her floppy little ears and a wonderfully pink belly that she was quite happy to display whenever she sprawled out on the sofa. 😂🥰
And her personality is every bit as fabulous as she looks.
Snowball seems to love everyone and everything. She’d zoom around the house, play with Bella, investigate whatever was happening and generally live life at approximately 300mph. 😂 She regularly managed to convince her considerably older sister to join in, too — and Bella would apparently forget all about being the senior member of the household and go charging around after her!
But perhaps the cutest thing about Snowball is her hot-pink teddy. 🥹🩷
Their parents, Sue and Ilhan, warned me about this very important member of the family when I arrived:
“It’s her baby. She picks it up and carries it everywhere. She never rips it. She just takes care of it like it’s her baby. She’s so gentle with it. And Bella never even tries to touch it, because she knows it’s Snowball’s baby and she’ll get in trouble.” 😂🥲🥰
And honestly… STOP IT. 🤣😭
I couldn’t handle the cuteness!
A baby WITH a baby 🩷🐻
For such an energetic little whirlwind, watching her gently carrying around her precious pink baby and placing it SO reverently on surfaces was ridiculously adorable. Even when I first arrived, she picked baby up and proudly circled around the kitchen table, showing it off to the newcomer (me) 🥰
Like her big sister, Snowball was also an enormous fan of WALKIES! 🐾 We had some lovely adventures around the nearby nature reserve, where Snowball was determined to personally investigate approximately every bush, plant, path, blade of grass and suspicious smell available. Including a particularly stinky nappy bag hidden amongst the cow parsley and stinging nettles 😂 🤦🏼♀️
She’d enthusiastically pull me towards whatever had caught her nose, desperate to get there and conduct the necessary terrier investigation. And when sheer physical enthusiasm wasn’t enough to communicate how exciting life was, she had the cutest little vocalisations — these excited yips that made her sound every bit as bonkers as she behaved. 😂🥰
She was hilarious 🤣
There was, however, one thing both girls took VERY seriously.
Fox patrol. 🦊🚨
At around 7PM-8PM every evening, Bella and Snowball would suddenly charge outside and begin an extended programme of run-pacing back and forth and barking furiously at… as far as I could tell… the garden wall 🤦🏼♀️
This happened for several nights.
I thought they were just quirky or plain nuts 🥜😂
Then, on around night four or five, they started again and I confidently informed them:
“Girls, there’s nothing there! You are barking. At nothing!”
…at which point I finally looked properly and saw an actual fox tightrope-walking along the top of the garden wall. 🦊
“…Oh. No. There actually IS a fox there. Fair enough. 🤔”
My apologies, ladies. Do carry on. 😂
I always forget my eyes are absolute dog turd when the sun goes down 🤡
But underneath all that Snowball chaos was an incredibly gentle and sensitive little dog, and I got to see just how deep her bond with Bella really was when her older sister suddenly became seriously unwell.
While I was dealing with Bella’s situation, Snowball knew something was wrong. She kept circling Bella, licking her and then stopping to stare at her for a few seconds, seemingly waiting for her sister to respond. When Bella was simply too unwell to react normally, Snowball became increasingly worried 🥺
Bella ultimately needed emergency veterinary treatment, which meant the sisters were separated for around an hour and a half to two hours in total.
When I finally brought Bella home again, Snowball was beside herself to see her. 🥹
She rushed straight over and practically sniffed the hair off her 😂 — nose working overtime as though she was determined to smell every single detail of where Bella had been and what had happened to her.
Bella was still very sleepy and wobbly from the medication she’d received at the vets, so I settled her comfortably onto her soft pouffe, where she quickly drifted off to sleep.
And Snowball?
She settled herself on the floor right at Bella’s feet and stayed there, eventually falling asleep as well 🥲💜
Later, when Bella woke and needed a wee, I helped her off her pouffe and steadied her, then Snowball immediately got up too. She followed her big sister out into the garden, accompanied her back inside, and then settled down with her again once Bella was safely back in bed.
Seeing their relationship in that moment was something genuinely special. Beneath all the running, yipping, walkies, fox patrols and general Snowball madness was a little dog who absolutely adored her big sister. She knew Bella wasn’t herself, knew she smelled strange, she worried about her, and once Bella came home, she seemingly wasn’t letting her out of her sight. 🥲🥰
Snowball, you were an absolute joy. Completely bonkers, ridiculously affectionate, endlessly entertaining and one incredibly loving little sister. 🤍🐾
🖤 BUBBLES 🖤
And then there was their fabulous feline brother, Bubbles — a beautiful domestic longhair who preferred to conduct much of our relationship from a safe and mysterious distance. 😂🐱
Bubbles may have been the most elusive member of the household, but he certainly wasn’t the quietest! When he was hungry or needed to come in/go outside, I was going to hear about it! 📣🤣
Bubbles had his own VERY important schedule. Most mornings I’d be woken somewhere around 4–5AM by a loudly announced request for food, after which he’d head outside and disappear… only to reappear at around 7AM for his REAL breakfast alongside the girls, at a reasonable hour 🤣 Apparently the first one was merely a pre-breakfast snack to fuel his crepuscular adventures 🌅
Then off he’d go again, usually disappearing for the entire day before strolling home around 5–6PM for dinner — which he would make absolutely certain I knew he was ready for by screaming his arrival at me 🐈⬛ 📢🤣
And once dinner had been served? You guessed it… gone again! 💨
Bubbles was a little more reserved with me at first and very much wanted our friendship to develop on his terms, which was absolutely fine by me. But by around our third day together, I was finally granted permission to give him a stroke. 🥹💜
From there, he became more comfortable with me as each day passed and our little friendship gradually grew to the point where he would meet me in the feeding room and I picked him up and placed him in front of his food ☺️
There’s something particularly lovely about earning the trust of a more independent cat rather than trying to rush it. By the end of our time together, I’d become rather fond of hearing Bubbles announce that he had returned from whatever terribly important feline business had occupied his day. 😂
He was an absolute pleasure to care for — even if my role in his life was apparently somewhere between trusted companion, hotel receptionist and 4AM breakfast chef. 🤣💜🐾
I had the pleasure of getting to know all these wonderful personalities and providing them companionship, playtime, and of course, plenty of cuddles — where permission was granted by management. 👀🐱😂
As always with JBP, the aim isn’t simply to make sure everybody is fed and watered. It’s about keeping life feeling as normal, comfortable and familiar as possible while their humans are away. Every animal has their own personality, routine and individual needs — whether they want you attached to their side or would rather supervise your work remotely from the neighbour’s shed roof. 😂💜
This particular sit also gave me a frightening reminder of exactly why professional experience and pet first-aid knowledge matter —
During my stay, Bella suddenly became dangerously unwell during the heat wave and developed severe heatstroke, even with the back doors open, fans on throughout the house and constant water available, which resulted in an emergency veterinary situation. 🚑🐾
Thankfully, I recognised that something was seriously wrong and acted immediately. Bella received the urgent veterinary treatment she needed and, after an incredibly scary experience, our gorgeous older lady was able to come safely home again. ❤️🩹
Needless to say, she received some very close supervision and an enormous amount of TLC afterwards, with Snowball and the ever-present-but-not-necessarily-visible Bubbles completing our little household. 🥹💜
Pet sitting isn’t always cuddles, walks and cute photographs -though I always capture them 😉- Sometimes you’re the person responsible for recognising when an animal needs help, making decisions quickly and advocating for them when their family can’t physically be there — and that responsibility is something I take incredibly seriously.
Thankfully, the rest of our time together involved considerably fewer heart-stopping moments and considerably more of the good stuff: looking after my little trio, getting to know their completely different personalities and making sure Bella could recuperate comfortably at home after her ordeal.
It was an absolute pleasure looking after all three pets, and their human family were also wonderful and welcoming. Plus, it turned out that we had very close family friends in common 😍
Thank you Sue and Ilhan for this lovely pet sit, and thank you to everyone for allowing me to share your home and the love of your animals ☺️
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Please enjoy all the photos I captured from this pet sit 💜
4th to last photo is of Bella en route to the vet, and 3rd to last is of Bella totally zonked out on her pouffe 😂
Then second to last and last photo are of me with Bella the next day. Oh Bella 🤦🏼♀️ 😂
