‘Walking Pleb’ charity trekker makes unplanned stop at Wick to find homes for pups after accidental pregnancy

A young man on a UK charity trek with his rescue dogs made an unscheduled stop at Wick to find homes for pups after one became pregnant.

Jordan Kealey (25) from Blackburn has a half-Rhodesian ridgeback/half-American bulldog bitch called Shyla who became pregnant after hooking up with a three-quarter Siberian husky and one-quarter German shepherd called Jackson who was rescued along the way.

“I’ve had Shyla for about a year-and-a-half,” said Jordan at Newtonhill Community Woodland on Thursday morning (June 20).

“Her first owner was a bit of a junkie and she was trapped in a cage so I ended up getting her off him. She was just skin and bones. That was in Cheshire. She should be a lot bigger but she was malnourished.”

He says he set off on his charity trek with Shyla and picked up Jackson during the trip after he was abandoned by his owner in Blackburn.

“I call myself ‘The Walking Pleb’ as there’s another geezer doing it called ‘The Walking Warrior’ and he’s really experienced but I’d never been camping or hiking so I thought I must be a bit of an idiot. It rhymes with ‘The Walking Dead’ as well,” he laughed.

“I was raising money for the RSPCA but after hearing some stuff about them I chose another charity called Until Every Dog has a Home – the woman takes in aggressive dogs, trains them up and rehomes them. She’s absolutely fantastic. I’m also raising money for a mental health charity called Men in Sheds.”

Jordan says he posts updates on social media and is often able to find places to stay after his followers contact him. “People have bought me hotel [rooms] and I’ve stayed in pods and even a luxury caravan. People are really friendly in Scotland though and they seem more and more friendly the further you travel north.”

Jordan set off from Nantwich in Cheshire on December 3, journeyed through the Cotswolds to Bournemouth and went up the east coast of the country to complete 2500 miles before reaching Wick. He has been wild camping with the two dogs along the route and has had to make a pit stop at Wick after Jackson got Shyla pregnant.

“This part of Scotland is beautiful. I’ve been walking in the forest at Blingery and it’s just gorgeous. I’m debating moving to Scotland when I’m finished but I need to go back to Blackburn as I heard my stepdad died yesterday. We think he had a heart attack. My little brother had to break down the bathroom door. My mum’s absolutely traumatised.”

Asked if he thought it was fair on the dogs to be taking them on the 7000-mile UK coastal walk, Jordan said: “The dogs are loving it!

“Before I was doing this I’d take Shyla out for around 50-60 miles a day. Two-and-a-half hours in the morning and the same at night. Her top speed is 36mph. I call her my ‘baby monster’.

“With Jackson, no matter how much I walk it’s never enough. He’s from a working breed.”

Regarding the unplanned pregnancy, Jordan described what happened. “Shyla was coming into season but she’d not started bleeding yet so I thought I’d get away with letting them off the lead. They were fine on the first day but on the second day I caught them tied together.

“All the vets I spoke to said she’d need four or five injections to get rid of them [the pups] but they were £200 each and it’s difficult to pay that money when you’re living off GoFundMe donations.”

Jordan says the pups are due the first week of July and that Shyla will have to be with them for around eight weeks until they are fully weaned.

“It’s changed my plans a bit and I’ll have to stay around Wick for the next three months or so. I post almost daily on my Facebook and I have a few people who want a pup but I think she’s going to have around 10 or even 12 as she’s massive already. It’s quite funny seeing her this fat as she’s usually so slim. Now her head looks too small for her body!”

He says that 50 per cent of the money he gets from the sale of the pups will go straight to his charities. “I’m not doing it on purpose and I’ve not bred my dogs on purpose to raise loads of money. It was an absolute accident.

“I’ll be walking down the west coast when it gets really cold so I’ll need some better gear. It’ll be hell in the winter. I heard it gets to minus 20 or something up here.”

Jordan says he has gone through four tents while on his journey and squeezes in with Shyla and Jackson to the two-man tent they currently use. He’s had to constantly replace boots and other pieces of kit along the way as well. However, despite all his trials and tribulations along the way, he describes the journey as one of the best things he has ever done and just wishes he had set off sooner.

“It’s changed me as a person on a deeper level.”

Jordan and his dogs were featured in a recent article in the Inverness Courier after a delivery mix-up left him with a box of fancy women’s underwear instead of the camping gear he expected.

Jordan’s charity links for donations can be found on his Walking Pleb page at: linktr.ee/thewalkingpleb

He has a Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092925258576

“Someone said it was animal cruelty taking the dogs along and we’d be dead by December but just look at them. They’re as happy as Larry!”

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