Man's Best Friend

Golden retriever boat dog Finlay lives afloat on the Midlands canals and has become a social media star. Owner Steve Bates tell us more

We’re continuous-cruisers aboard a 60ft, 1978-built narrowboat which we purchased in September 2020 from Slough. I’d only been on a narrowboat once before as a child, so that first six-day journey home to Nuneaton was an enjoyable challenge. Finlay, our golden retriever, joined us on board in February 2023 as a puppy; he’ll be two years old in November. None of our family or friends knew about him before we brought him home, so he was a complete surprise.

 

I grew up in Tamworth and my partner is from Nuneaton, so we mainly travel on the canals of the Midlands, focussing on the Coventry Canal over winter and exploring further in the summer. This year we’ve cruised most of the Birmingham Canal Navigations with Finlay, trying to complete some of the IWA Silver Propeller Challenge locations, including Bradley Workshops, Titford Pools, the Fens branch of the Stourbridge Canal and Walsall Basin. We also did a sponsored 100km walk for the Royal British Legion, where Finlay got his own medal for the money he helped us to raise.

 

Puppy life was mostly spent around Birmingham city centre and the nearby suburbs, but we’ve travelled further as he’s grown. Some of our favourite spots on the system are in cities, where Finlay can sit in the well deck – all you hear from people walking past are ‘handsome dog’ comments. We love rural places too, like just outside Springwood Haven on the Coventry Canal, and there are a couple of great moorings, like at Walsall Top Lock, which are big enough for just one boat and the bank is grassed and gated so Finlay can run free without disturbing others. Pub-wise, the Dog & Doublet in Minworth has always done great food for us and is dog-friendly. 

 

I’m a completely self-taught photographer and rely on the point-and-shoot method with my Canon 80D camera, although the iPhone 14 is really useful for taking pictures of Finlay as it’s much quicker to grab and take an ad hoc action shot with. I love sharing my photographs of Finlay with the community – see @finredmoonshine on Instagram or redmoonshine.com.

 

This is an abridged version of the article that appeared in "On The Cut" in Waterways World November 2024