I asked a couple of the kids in my daughter’s class what they were wanting for Christmas this year and amongst the Barbie this and the Hulk that were a couple of ‘cachorros’. Puppies!

I wonder how people who work at the animal shelters feel about Christmas. With the pens heaving and not a square inch to squeeze in one more four legged soul it must be very tempting to wave a few fur babies off as Christmas presents. But the animal rescue volunteers know very well that many a Christmas morning’s furry bundle turns into Easter’s mangy stray dog or street cat.

What they want to see is not the temporary respite of a little more space in the shelter but the dogs and cats in their care going to forever homes where they will never be abandoned or neglected again.

I have mentioned Sharon Haslam from Happy Tails who visits me regularly to help me keep Tito under some semblance of control. Sharon also works with K9 Tenerife to ensure that the dogs who are rehomed from there settle in and is available for further support if needed by the new owners.

If you are considering getting your kids a pet for Christmas, I’d suggest holding off until the festive season is well by. That puppy or kitten that stole everyones’ heart on Christmas morning will have peed on the floor once too often or clawed the new speakers to bits by Valentine’s Day. The luckiest of them will find their way to a shelter while the rest will swell the ranks of abandoned animals on the streets of Tenerife.

You’ll have your pick of great companions and instead of paying a fortune to the breeder you can give a welcome donation to the shelter and put some money towards Sharon’s excellent dog training services.

News in the Sun reports that house sales in S.C. de Tenerife have fallen by 90% leading to the closure of up to 65% of estate agents in Tenerife.

Funnily enough the photo used to illustrate that story looked quite familiar. Turns out it is spookily similar to one I took myself back in 2001 when I was emailed by a holiday maker who suspected she’d been sold a pig in a poke. She had. That construction site was the same place that the travel agent had described as a ‘new hotel complex’.

Imagine turning up for your two weeks in the sun and ending up there!
The original Is Your Holiday Resort a Construction Site is quite outdated now but it is worth a look when you are booking a holiday overseas. The internet makes it so easy nowadays to look up recent resort photographs or ask in forums for unbiased reviews.

There is no doubt that you can find a bargain if you are house hunting in Tenerife right now. This time last year there is no way you would have found a 3 bedroom town house in central Granadilla for €200,000. Prices are falling and if you are in the market for a new casa, you can get a good overall picture of house prices both for sale by owner and via a wide range of agents by tracking listings on Segunda Mano and Gratum.

A keen eye may even note the same property sold at significantly different prices by two different agencies. For example there has been a finca on sale in Charco del Pino for the last several months. I have seen it for sale on the same day at €259,000 and €269,000.

So shop around and take your time. I definitely recommend using an experienced and reputable estate agent when buying your dream property in Tenerife. Their involvement will ensure the smooth exchange of ownership and their assistance with the necessary documentation will save you a lot of stress. It may help you decide which estate agent to use by comparing the quality of their listings in these two combination websites.

However, where the estate agents are invaluable at sourcing the right property and walking you through the paperwork to ensure a smooth exchange of ownership they may not always give the best advice when it comes to the best mortgage for you.

Tenerife Mortgages – The Right Mortgage for You

Unfortunately, there is very little in the way of regulation when it comes to Tenerife mortgages and the stories of bad advice and unhelpful banks are endless. The real problems arose when estate agents here realised they could earn an extra commission by introducing their buyers to the local banks. But, given that there are over 30 mortgage lenders and more than 100 mortgage products available in Spain, it was rare that an agent would ever introduce a client to the RIGHT bank.

Read more about Tenerife Mortgages on eTenerife

While we can see that Tito is growing quickly he is with us all the time so it doesn’t really register just how big he is getting. At 51/2 months he now tops Skye (our Boxer) by a good inch and a half and there is still possibly another four months growing in him.

In the first picture, Tito has already been with us for a few weeks and had filled out quite a bit. At puppy appointments even the vet laughed out loud when he managed to put on seven kilos in one month.

I know people who walk their dogs at the crack of dawn or in the wee hours of the morning because their pooch has ‘issues’ and they are afraid of what will happen if their path should cross with another dog. My own sweet Skye has occasional problems with other females because I probably under-socialised or over-protected her when she was a puppy.

I don’t want to make the same mistake with Tito and I don’t want him confined to sneaky walks in the dark scurrying for home if another dog is sighted on the horizon. Also with a dog of his size (even now never mind at full maturity) it is vitally important that he be rock solid with all kids and completely trustworthy in the presence of other dogs. I don’t want him hauling me down the street or taking off after a cat or across a busy road…

Where once my daughter and I shared a joke about new estate agent offices popping up like mushrooms now they appear to be dropping like flies. As every whitewashed locale window was eventually polished clean to reveal a shiny new property agent, we raised eyebrows and wished for a My Little Pony shop instead. Well she did, I secretly wanted an English book shop.

I wondered at the time how our relatively small town could support them all. Of course estate agents in Tenerife are neither restricted to the towns that house their office nor to Tenerife itself. Many are simply based here and offer services in Fuerteventura, the other Canary Islands, mainland Spain and forays into the Cape Verde property market but still when you have several estate agent offices cheek by jowl in a small local town you do have to wonder if there is enough money flying around to sustain them all.

And it would now seem that there is not. Despite trumpeting rally cries about it being a buyer’s market and Miguel ángel Fernández Ordónez, head honcho of the Bank of Spain comfortingly assuring us that Spain will almost certainly squeak through without a recession, buyers are understandably cautious.

On the one hand there are fantastic bargains to be made – just at the back of me there is a nice little two bedroom house with garden that has dropped €20,000 in the last week. It was not overpriced to begin with. Another property I spotted in La Estrella went from €180.000 to €140.000 just recently and indications are that prices will continue to fall.

On the other hand, potential buyers are being advised to keep an eye on the Euribor which today is standing at 5.454%. As that continues to rise, so do your mortgage repayments.

All the more necessary then, to find a solid, professional and experienced estate agent to guide you through the mine field of potential pitfalls to the crock of property investment gold that lies at the other side. I’ve no doubt those that have the experience and local knowledge will weather the current storm of estate agent closures and that the property market place will be all the healthier for that.

Find some of the Tenerife’s most experienced English speaking estate agents on eTenerife.com as well as property agents for Fuerteventura and Cape Verde.

Well, Tito’s trainer, Sharon, paid a visit again yesterday. She caught me on the hop as I had it firmly in mind that she was due today. Luckily she called me about something else first which gave me time for a quick tidy up (throw everything behind the sofa) before she arrived.

The kids and I walked across the park with Tito to meet Sharon and on the way back she commented that he was doing much better. It might sound silly that I was getting pulled along behind a four month old pup but Tito is the size of your average four month old buffalo already so he is quite capable of barreling me off my feet.

It’s quite reassuring to have Sharon in my corner. Tito is going to be a huge beast of a dog and with two small kids I need to know I am in control of him at all times. Perhaps because I am aware of this, I tend to tense up when I am trying to get Tito to walk beside me. The poor pup is yanked back into position every two steps and that is definitely no fun for him or me. So my homework is to learn the art of the loose leash.

The main job of a dog trainer is not really training the dog. It is getting basket cases like myself into line and showing us how we can train our own dog. Yesterday Sharon threw in a couple of hand signals which work beautifully on the kids too. Now all I need is a command that would have every one else in the house doing their share of boring housework and I would be walking on air.

You too can have your dog and kids trained in no time. Give Sharon a call on 699109837.

No, I’m not talking about the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, although our own Tito could be just as daunting. We recently became the proud owners of a young Presa Canario. He’s a lovely boy but dearie me, he’s growing fast. At just four months old he already has enough power to drag me down the street so with visions of this great brute of a dog, steaming down the road with me trailing behind him I contacted Sharon Haslam, a dog trainer and behaviour consultant.

Happily Sharon’s initial assessment of my baby is that he is unlikely to turn into the Hound of Zoltan, though she had some firm advice about the need to have him neutered in eight months or so which had my husband squirming uncomfortably in his seat.

Sharon also does pet sitting and dog walking and can be reached on 699109837