Skipper’s Story

Howdy!

I’m the DFDS Snowdog, but you can call me Skipper.

I’m hoping to get to meet lots of you over the coming months as part of the Great North Snowdogs art trail, or perhaps I already have met you onboard the DFDS ferry Princess Seaways! Either way, maybe you’d like to know a little bit more about me…

Ever since I was a pup, I’ve always known I was different, after all, not many dogs are born with a coat quite as colourful as mine! My coat was designed by Joanne Wishart, you can find out more about her here. And it’s always been obvious that I was destined for a life at sea. Most dogs dread the thought of bath-time, but not me! And my favourite days out were always at the beach. In fact, sometimes I used to deliberately get extra dirty so I could spend more time splashing around in the water. I always was a sly old dog.

So it was no surprise when I ended up at sea, sailing as the captain’s watchdog on a DFDS freight ship. I spent many happy years working on that ship, usually working the Dog Watch (between the hours of 4pm and 8pm). I even learned how to ring the ship’s bell!

Of course, the most fun I had was chasing around the ship’s cat who was there to make sure there were no rats about. Bless him, he was a worthy foe.

Recently though, I’ve been taking it easy because working so hard isn’t easy on my old bones!

Like I said earlier, some of you might have seen me taking my final bow on the waves earlier this year when I spent a month on the sky deck of Princess Seaways, reliving my days on the Dog Watch. During this time I was sure to meet and greet as many passengers as possible. Even an old Sea Dog like me can’t tire of being told he’s a good boy…

These days though, I’m back on dry land. I couldn’t quite bring myself to part from the sea though. You can find me in my new home at the North Shields Fish Quay, where I welcome King and Princess Seaways into port every morning and wave them off every evening with my tail wagging before practising my puppy dog eyes on the customers at the restaurants on the Fish Quay, even after all these years, Skipper’s still got it!

So that’s my life these days, and I hope you’ll come and share some of it with me. I’ll be waiting by the Fish Quay every day until 29 November, watching when the boat comes in, so come down and say hi. I love having my photo taken with all my new friends, and I’ve been told that DFDS are offering a prize for the best photo – an original painting by Joanne Wishart of the same design that’s on me! Find out how you can win here!

Visit me as part of the Great North Snowdogs trail and download the app and map and you can get an exclusive discount at DFDS. For more information about the Snowdogs Trail, visit the Great North Snowdogs website.

For more information about DFDS’ Great North Snowdogs sponsorship, head to their website. There’s even a video of me being painted!