A woman is training for the London marathon with the help of her dog, who will join her for part of the challenge.
After suffering two miscarriages, Lucy Jones, from the village of Hawthorn, near Pontypridd, found that her mental health was in a critical state, so she turned to counselling and found jogging with her rare breed Bedlington terrier a help aswell.
Lucy, 29, who lives with her husband, James, said: “Bedlingtons have a strong prey drive, and with Joey getting older, he started running off on our walks and was unreliable at recall but still had lots of energy and loves running.
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“At the same time, I was struggling with my mental health after two miscarriages, so we started doing a few walk/jogs together. I soon found Joey loved it more than me, he was always ahead of me and started barking at me if I slowed down.
“Joey was really loving it unless it was raining. He hates the rain as he’s only small and thin and almost shaped like a fluffy whippet, so he gets cold quite easily.”
The rain meant that Joey was not a reliable running partner, and unfortunately, living in Wales, she could not guarantee the weather.
She told TeamDogs : “We always run at his pace, it's always faster than me. We stop when he’s had enough and walk for a bit or run again when he’s ready. We never run on hot days leaving those days to walks in the evening.”
Lucy came across The Miscarriages Association and noticed they were advertising spots on their virtual London marathon. She said: “The miscarriage association helps to support couples and families who go through baby loss in pregnancy with support groups and information.
“I found myself the first person in my family to go through a miscarriage and for my husband and I we didn’t have any information on how to process or what to do in the initial aftermath.
“The miscarriage association had the information we needed to guide us through, my husband used their support line when I was in crisis and he was worried about me, they advised seeing a counsellor specific in baby loss. That made all the difference. I suffered from a lot of mental health problems and struggled to understand why miscarriage is such a taboo subject.
“Before losing our little ones I wouldn’t have believed I could do something like that, but now I know what I’ve gone through I have more self-belief. “
Joey won’t be running the whole marathon but will be running parts with Lucy and has helped with training.
Lucy said that Bedlington terriers are rare now in the UK and very few puppies are born every year and especially so in Wales.
"When we’re on holiday in the Lake District you are more likely to see them.”
The one-year-old Bedlington does love to chill out at home and spends most of the day sleeping on the sofa but he has a very adventurous spirit.
“He’s also very clever, it doesn’t take him long to pick up tricks and he does agility training with my husband once a week. But as much as he sleeps at home, he has as much energy outside, he loves all-day hikes and running.”
The family is very active and has included Joey when they go running, hiking, and going on long walks and encouraged him as soon as he was safe and had developed enough.
Lucy said: “Joey will do fine, like I said he’s not doing the whole marathon. He’s helping me train and he’s going to run the last few miles.”
You can sponsor Lucy and Joey for their marathon run here.
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