ANDARA: We must have been barking mad!

Last week we were away in Oxfordshire working on a photo shoot for our new Christmas range. The photos came through this morning and they look great. We worked with a fantastic photographer Nick Smith, Nick Smith Photography, and we are looking forward to showing you the results in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, We hope you all had a wonderful bank holiday weekend (although I am sure it feels like an age ago). Unfortunately for us Andara girls, our long weekend was not a weekend of relaxation and sunshine but a weekend of chaos, hysterics and a lot of doggy doodoo.

May I interest you in some table runners?? Just water, ok no problem Sir.

This bank holiday weekend, Andara packed up the car and headed to Essex for the annual Essex Dog Day at Hatfield Peverel. Although it seems 'strike me down' obvious now, we had definitely underestimated how doggy a 'dog day' is. We arrived and were instructed to set up our stall in between a dog leash emporium and a mother and daughter team selling wooden puzzles… for dogs. Hmm, already quite doggy.

hhmmm, nope nothing I can eat here

To make ourselves feel more at home we strategically placed a doggy water bowl under our parasol in order to draw in the crowds. This was a genius move and a huge hit with the dogs and before long we had a queue of wagging tails surrounding the Andara stall. Fantastic we thought! Dogs have owners, owners have houses therefore owners need cushions right? Wrong. Not even the briefest of glances towards our wares except for one gruff voice calling out, ‘do you do any cushions with doggies on them?’ Our response of 'no' was greeted with a collective tutting of disapproval from the crowd.

No doggy cushions here- sorry!

As the afternoon progressed we got not so much as a sniff in our direction although our cushion display did prove to be THE place of choice for passing dogs to stop and squat. We should have thought that one out- feed a dog water and you will soon get...

Kindly move on

As we were packing up, we were given business advice from our next door neighbour. “If you put a picture of a dog on your napkins, you’ll sell way more.” Thank you sir for your advice but we are a beautiful, decorative homeware company and we don’t do dogs, came the reply.

All in all, a rather ‘pawful’ day. But here at Andara, we are not one to grumble so we end on a doggy joke.

Why did the dachshund bite the woman's ankle ?

Because he was short and couldn't reach any higher

To honour our doggy start to September, we thought we would share our top 5 favourite dog themed accessories for the home, aptly named…

“DOING IT DOGGY STYLE”