Crafty Dog Books

11/03/2026

Crafty Dog Books will be moving with the Preserves and Designs pages to one new page - Crafty Dog Cymru. It will put all three FB pages into one joint page, which will be much easier to update and for you to find our fabulous products.

Hi All. This page will soon replace the Crafty Dog Designs Cymru and Crafty Dog Preserves Cymru FB pages and eventually Crafty Dog Books too. It's hard keeping all the separate FB business pages updated, and, as we are also moving our website to Shopify, it's the perfect opportunity to streamline things. Keep popping across to see how we are going. In the meantime, here's a photo of the Managing Director herself.

16/02/2026

If any of you don't know, I also (try to) find time to write. This includes the Crafty Dog Towers Blog, an alternative, almost steam punk, history of the area.
It's all about Crafty Dog Towers – Our Country House & Estate in Swanseashire, and began during Covid.
We started to post short stories on FB about the (imaginary) staff that worked on the (also imaginary) country estate around Crafty Dog Towers. It really started with Mr Grout, the Head Gardener and his lazy Gardener’s Lad, Pendulous Sedge, or Pendle for short. His name came from a grass that a friend was talking about on FaceBook and it seemed to fit perfectly!
If we had garden’s staff, we had to have staff at The Towers too, including Cook (a mysterious half-Welsh/half-French ex-member of the French Foreign Legion catering corps), a butler called Higgins, Mrs Grainger the Housekeeper, and other ancillary staff.
The Towers had to have a back-story, its own place in Swanseashire history, with local customs (the Christmas Tree, pudding, and staff vs family football match in the Great Hall), and even the tales of the ghosts who walk the halls, or in one case, the recycling bins behind the visitors car park.
What history? Why, the jams and chutney mines on which local fortunes were made, and of the wild west of the Amman Valley with its outlaws and vagabonds. The very hills around the house are home to herds of escaped and now feral llamas, brought in a triangular trade from South America in the 1860’s (well, if Australia can have camels, why can’t Swanseashire have llamas?).
Check out the Tales from Crafty Dog Gardens Blog if you want a laugh at this peculiar spin on local Welsh history. And browse the other Blogs too – the children’s stories and foodie posts. Go on – have a laugh!
https://www.crafty-dog-cymru.co.uk/crafty-dog-gardens/

24/12/2025

On behalf of Gwennie and the rest of her staff here at Crafty Dog Towers, we'd like to thank all our customers and friends for their support this year, and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here's a little Christmas Story for you all.
https://www.crafty-dog-cymru.co.uk/a-white-christmas-carollers-and-a-greyhound/

A White Christmas (Eve) at Crafty Dog Towers The snow was falling quick but silent, or maybe it was masked by the sound of the be-scaffed and woolly hatted ...

14/11/2025

What are ex-racing Greyhounds like? What do they eat? Do they need exercise?
I asked these same questions when we adopted our first hound back in 1999. That was our Sally. After our second greyhound, and a few fosters, I looked back and wrote about our greyhound journey. That became my first book, "A Hound in the House", available from our webshop. I answer some of your questions as we learned them along the way. If you want to know about what it's like living with A Hound in the House, why not give the book a read! https://www.crafty-dog-cymru.co.uk/product/a-hound-in-the-house/

14/11/2025

Gwennie, the Managing Director of Crafty Dog Cymru, working at one of our recent events. She does love to meet her public, especially those with something to eat! https://www.crafty-dog-cymru.co.uk/

17/07/2025

I had a lovely lady approach me a few weeks ago to tell me she was reading The Largest Rabbit to her sons (4 and 2). The eldest was fascinated by the book, full of questions and loving the characters. She even showed me a phone video of her sons being read to. I was so touched that I did have leaky eyeballs! There's nothing like the feeling when someone enjoys what you have spent time and craft pulling together.

15/07/2025

Penny the Crafty Dog herself, in her own words - what could be a better holiday read for anyone who loves greayhounds, or indeed dogs in general?

This is a real story of greyhound rescue, about Penny and her journey from abandoned racer to media mega star, with tears and laughter along the way.