🐾 La Ruche Pets – Old & New
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Last updated: August 2025
At La Ruche, right next to Ursula Gîte, our animal family is a huge part of who we are. Over the years, we’ve opened our doors and our hearts to all kinds of furry and feathered friends — many of them rescues, and all of them unforgettable 🐶🐔🦙.
🐕 Our Rescue Dogs
We moved over from the UK with two beautiful rescue border collies:
- Kryten – A Welsh collie with epilepsy, who defied expectations and lived to 16 years 🧡
- Hallie – An Irish collie with cerebellar hypoplasia (a condition more common in cats!), who made it to 8 and passed peacefully in her favourite front garden spot 🌼
Then came the French chapter of our rescue journey:
- Brien – Rescued from the SPA in Cherbourg, this Austrian border collie is still going strong at 12+. He’s ball-obsessed, gentle, and completely deaf 🎾❤️
- Gipsy – Rescued from Brittany, she was a little cantankerous with age, but so loyal. She lived to 14 💞
- Bubbles – A golden retriever abandoned near La Ruche, found 20kg underweight. After a bath we discovered his true colour! He became my dad Robin’s not-so-secret favourite. Sadly, he passed after eating a poisoned rat — we never use poison here for exactly that reason 💔🐾
🐈 Our Cats
Columbia and Magenta – Two rescue cats from the Cats Protection League in London, who came to France as indoor cats and ruled the loft at La Ruche. Magenta passed recently, but Columbia (Lummy) is still going strong — currently competing with Janet the llama for biggest belly! 🐱
Eddie – A stray who appeared after Storm Ciarán and quickly became queen of the house. She was given a home in the barn (which includes Ursula Gîte and other sections — one of which may one day become another gîte 👀). But of course, she now sleeps on Mum’s bed nightly 😼
If you see her sneaking into Ursula Gîte, feel free to gently shoo her out — she will try to take over (and probably eat your food!).
🐓 Chickens, Ducks & More
We’ve rehomed chickens through Poules pour Tous, a brilliant French organisation that helps rescue laying hens 🐔🥚
Our ducks? All born here and hand-reared by us after their mum disappeared on day one. More on that in a future blog post! 🦆
🦙 The Llamas
Ursula, Pichou and Janet were all rehomed from a difficult past. Ursula is the matriarch — a little aloof with strangers, but never spits. Pichou is shy and quiet. Janet is Ursula’s daughter and will gladly accept carrots — but cuddles are out of the question!
They live a peaceful life in our fields — and they’ve truly come into their own since arriving here 💚
💬 Why We Rescue
It’s not always our plan, but animals in need seem to find us. We always check for microchips at the vet, and all our rescues are chipped and sterilised. We joke that we only ever seem to get the “broken ones” — but to us, they’re perfect ❤️
Every animal here, past or present, is deeply loved — and always will be.