The Sausage Dog Cafe

10/12/2023

Christmas 2023 - what a wonderful day!!

We had over 300 people join us, and over 120 dogs!! And what an amazing sight it was ♥️

Thank you all for coming along, bringing your beautiful pooches, for your kindness and smiling faces, to every small business that made the effort to join us : none of this would work without you all!!

We really hope you enjoyed your day as much as we did. Please continue to tag us in your amazing photos and videos so we can share them too!!

And again, I am sorry again over the terrible weather; the only thing to put a dampener (quite literally) on an otherwise wonderful day.

Truly; thank you, thank you, thank you. Shall we do it again in the *summer*! 😉

09/12/2023

We are on!

Please note as per your booking emails, early admission is not allowed and we encourage you to wait to approach the doors until the time of your slot starting.

The weather is terrible, I wish I could have made it a sunny day but sadly it was not to be. For health and safety reasons and to respect the set up for the stallholders, we cannot let anyone enter the hall early.

Thanks, we can’t wait to see you all later! 🐾♥️

08/12/2023

* Stallholder Shoutout *

are back with us again tomorrow with their gorgeous homeware and of course little sausage assistant Dotty!

08/12/2023

We are just 20 x human tickets away from tomorrow being a total sell out!!

3.15-4.45 - *all breeds welcome*

Danbury leisure centre, CM34NQ - free parking on site, and fields to the front and back of the hall for pre or post event walkies!

To book, please email [email protected] with how many human & how many dog tickets you would like!

All payments must be made by 8pm tonight!! Walk ups and payments on entry will be turned away, the event is pre-paid entry only.

We have 13 amazing stalls, a free to use Christmas photo area, the kitchen hatch will be selling hot & cold drinks, puppachinos, cakes & sausage rolls and there’s lots of other owners coming to socialise with! And best of all, a portion of ticket sales is being split between The Red Foundation & Dedicated to Dachshunds with IVDD charities!

We really hope you can join us!

07/12/2023

* Stallholder Shoutout *

will be joining us Saturday with their beautiful handmade jewellery! Perfect for Christmas gifts 🎄

07/12/2023

* Stallholder Shoutout! *

The amazing and oh so lovely Matilda and Co are joining us on Saturday with their beautiful range of harnesses, collars, leads and more!!

We can’t wait to have them join us for the first time - perfect for all the spoilt pooches in your life!!

05/12/2023

Wilbur & his big eyes wanted you to know we have very few spaces left for Saturday!!

We have spaces in the 3.15-4.45 all breeds slot, but are otherwise *sold out* - if you’ve been thinking about coming, grab them while you can!!

The book is closed Friday evenings, any walk ups or unpaid bookings will unfortunately be turned away.

We have 13 lovely stalls, a free to use Christmas photo area, Christmas music, a ball pit for the sausages, and the perfect chance to socialise with likeminded owners!!

Tickets are £4 per person & per dog (children under 5 go free!)

To book, email [email protected] with how many tickets you need for human and canine and we will get you booked in!!

Payment is required by 8pm Friday 8th December!

We hope you can join us ♥️

04/12/2023

* Stallholder Shoutout *

Are joining us for the second year running!

Ran by Kim (Tammy’s mum!) who has 2 mini dachshunds of her own, she will have with her her beautiful handmade dog jumpers, snoods, snuggle sacks, bandanas, bow ties, collars, dog toys & crochet human cardis (which match some of her crochet snoods for extra cuteness!)

04/12/2023

* Stallholder Shoutouts! *

- Danbury based home baker, with a 5* hygiene rating from Chelmsford council.

Tammy, the owner of PKB is also the sole organiser of the entire cafe event, and has been since 2018!!

Prices start at £2, and can be eaten in or taken away on the day ♥️

01/11/2023

Of course we jumped on the AI trend for our next update!!

*Danbury Leisure Centre, Saturday 9th December*

Slots are filling up; to book please email [email protected] with how many human & canine tickets you need! Tickets are £4 each, and payment must be made within 5 working days of booking.

Slots are;

10.00-11.30 - SOLD OUT

11.45-1.15 - SOLD OUT

1.30-3.00 - SOLD OUT

3.15-4.45 - ALL BREEDS WELCOME - 46 human spaces left, no limit on dogs.

We have some amazing stalls booked in for your Christmas shopping; for your dogs, your homes and you! And will have a free-to-use photo area with wooden sleigh set up for you too!

We really hope you can join us ♥️ 🐾

26/10/2023

*UPDATE*

Thank you to everyone who has booked in for the cafe so far, we are so happy so many of you want to join us!!

The event is Saturday 9th December, at the Danbury Leisure Centre, CM3 4NQ. There is free parking on site and a small green to the front and large green to the back for pre or post walkies!

The time slot choices are;

🌟 10 - 11.30 - *SOLD OUT*

🌟 11.45 - 1.15 - *SOLD OUT*

🌟 1.30 - 3.00 - dachshunds only - *19 human spaces left, no limit on daxies*

🌟 3.15 - 4.45 - all breeds welcome - *43 human spaces left, no limit on dogs*

✨ Spaces are £4 per person and £4 per dog. (Children under 5 are free, but please do let me know if you are bringing an under 5 as we have limited availability per slot) and a portion of all ticket sales will be donated to charities The Red Foundation and Dedicated to Dachshunds - The Red Foundation will also be with us on the day with a stall!

🌭 To book - please email [email protected] - stating your chosen slot, and how many tickets you will need, for both human and canine. We cannot guarantee add-ons closer to the time. Tickets need to be paid for within 3 working days, or the slot will be opened for someone else to book into.

🐾 All spaces are pre-booking only; walk ins on the day will not be permitted and tickets can only be booked via email; you cannot book through direct message or directly through the leisure centre.

We hope you can join us!!

17/10/2023

If you have emailed to book in and have not yet paid your ticket fee, please check your emails - 16 chasers were sent out yesterday for overdue payments and only 5 people have responded - if nothing by Thursday morning those slots will become available again.

Thank you!

16/10/2023

We have 81 tickets left for the cafe before we are sold out!!

09/10/2023

🐾 Hi everyone, and thank you all for the interest in our Sausage Dog Cafe 🐾

The event is Saturday 9th December, at the Danbury Leisure Centre, CM3 4NQ. There is free parking on site and a small green to the front and large green to the back for pre or post walkies!

The event will have some amazing dog themed small businesses, a seating area for catching up with daxie friends, a hatch for teas, coffees and cold drinks and a cake stall, along with Christmas music to set the scene (of course!) - and an area for Christmas photo opportunities!

We have 10 stalls confirmed so far, including cakes, dog apparel, human apparel, natural dog treats, handmade dog treats, home ware (with a dog theme, naturally!), coasters & chopping boards, cards, wax melts & more!

The time slot choices are;

🌟 10 - 11.30 - dachshunds only - *5 human tickets left - no limit on daxies*

🌟 11.45 - 1.15 - dachshunds only - *1 human ticket left - no limit on daxies*

🌟 1.30 - 3.00 - dachshunds only - *23 human slots left - no limit on daxies*

🌟 3.15 - 4.45 - all breeds welcome - *43 human slots left, no limit on dogs*

✨ Spaces are £4 per person and £4 per dog. (Children under 5 are free, but please do let me know if you are bringing an under 5 as we have limited availability per slot) and a portion of all ticket sales will be donated to charities The Red Foundation and Dedicated to Dachshunds - The Red Foundation will also be with us on the day with a stall!

We will do our best to accommodate your first choice, but please note we do anticipate a good amount of interest in the event, so it can’t be guaranteed. All spaces are first come first serve.

🌭 To book - please email [email protected] - stating your chosen slot, and how many tickets you will need, for both human and canine. We cannot guarantee add-ons closer to the time.

🐾 All spaces are pre-booking only; walk ins on the day will not be permitted and tickets can only be booked via email; you cannot book through direct message or directly through the leisure centre.

🦴 Once your choice has been accepted, you will receive a booking email, with your total entry cost, and how to pay. Payments need to be made within 3 working days from the email, or your space may be passed on.
Once payments are made, they are non-refundable and non-transferable.

🌭 Please do not bring dogs in season or pregnant dogs. This is for their own safety as well as those dogs around them. Your dogs are your own responsibility at the event; the event can get loud and busy, and several dogs enjoy a sniff around off lead. The sausage dog cafe and all staff accept no liability for any unwanted matings, or any pooch fisticuffs on the day.

🕰️ Please ensure you do not arrive at the venue more than 5 minutes before your time slot; we close the venue for 15 minutes between each session so that all stallholders and staff can have a quick break. Early entry is not permitted, and you are expected to leave once your time slot has ended.

🚗 The site has 2 free carparks for your use on the day. Please note that access to the cafe event is only permitted through the back sports hall doors, not the main building entrance, so we suggest you use the side carpark, on Maynes Lane.

(Please note these events are not part of my day job, just something I really enjoy! So if you don’t hear back straight away, don’t worry! I’ll get back to you as soon as I can 🙂)

Since launching in March 2018 we have donated over £2500 to amazing charities, thanks to all of your amazing support!

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Tammy, Wilbur & Daphne at The Sausage Dog Cafe xo

03/10/2023

We’re doing it all again!!

Tickets and time slots released Monday 9th October.

As always we will have the kitchen hatch open for drinks and cake, the photo area, ball pit, Christmas music, stalls & of course, lots of daxies!

I really hope you can join us ♥️

19/09/2023

The wonderful The Red Foundation - Emergency Dachshund Rescue UK are looking to expand their volunteer base!

If you have the time to dedicate to helping, please drop them an email ♥️

💔💔Something we never thought we would have to say💔💔

We are struggling. Individually, as a Team and as a Charity

We currently have

🐾24 dogs we are actively looking for homes for
🐾4 in rehab which will need homes very soon (otherwise the thousands we have spent on them will have been in vain)
🐾30 YES THIRTY dogs on our waiting list with a possible 10 more surrenders forms incoming

We recruited a few months back for more case workers and had an amazing response and some fabulous new team members, However due to various reasons which have ranged from health and personal situations to case workers not being able to cope with the emotional aspect of rescue or dedicate enough time, our team is still struggling to clear the backlog of dogs that people need our help with.

You may have seen in the news that it’s not just us - ALL RESCUES are struggling, however the team we currently have are stretching themselves so thinly that we feel it is not manageable anymore, and not fair on the people needing our help or on our adopters and fosterers. Along with loosing new members, 2 of our old school team are having to take time off due to health and personal reasons and we have 2 more due to have operations in the next month. We are all trying our best to dedicate as much time as we can but we also all have our own jobs, families, dogs and lives that we juggle along with this work.

On top of making contact with owners and potential new homes, our case workers also, on a daily basis deal with messages from previous adopters - this can just be an lovely update to a behaviour or medical problem that requires dealing with. We have a HUGE amount of lifetime medical dogs on our books and as we offer lifetime support this can be almost like a full time job. The more time you are on the team the more amazing adopters we keep in touch with - but this all takes a toll.

So we have made the decision to take the following steps immediately and for the foreseeable future:

1. We can only accept emergency medical surrenders - even then we can not guarantee we can help in a few hours like we were able to before.
2. We will stop adding dogs to our website and publishing on Facebook until they have a case worker able to deal with the messages straight away as we are finding that by the time a dog is allocated a case worker, everyone who has shown interest has already adopted elsewhere. We introduced this system to help us but we misjudged peoples patience with us.
3. Once our waiting list is down to 5 we will reopen it again - this will still mean a delay on working on new cases but hopefully not as long as the 6-8 weeks we are currently quoting.

The only solution going forward once we clear the backlog is to have a huge team of caseworkers so we are once again recruiting … However before you apply we would ask you to honestly ask yourself the following 2 questions:

1. Do you actually have enough time to be a case worker? Does your current job and daily life allow for it? Case work is not 9 - 5 or 5 - 9 - it’s pretty much 24/7 365. Im currently typing this at 23.05 at night… If you value early nights and a set in stone pattern to your day then its not for you. Could you take a call, or respond to an adopter who’s panicking during your normal day? Could you put down everything and jump on a team call (or join in whilst cooking dinner?) to discuss something urgent? Could you liase with vets and organise the emergency treatment of a dog, and put everything else you had planned for that day aside?

2. Can you handle the emotional aspect of rescue? A lot of the time this isn’t horrid abuse cases (thank goodness) - although those are hard enough… Its speaking to owners who are at their absolute lowest and have no where else to turn. I have cried along with many of them, however I also know that I can dust myself down, pick myself up and think of the positives that we are helping someone through one of the hardest things they have ever had to face - rehoming their dog.

If your answer to the above is no then we commend your honesty. A lot of people would love to help out but casework is too full on for them. There are other ways you can help us and we appreciate anything that anyone does to spread the word, fundraise for us or generally support the work we do.

If your answer is yes then please drop us an email to [email protected]. Recruiting and then training new people is obviously an added pressure for the team so please do bear with us once we receive your application - we will be fitting this in around trying to clear our backlog of dogs needing new homes.

We only have one pair of hands each, so we hope that by adding a lot of new members to our team, that many hands will make light work for everyone

20/12/2022

Thank you again to all who attended, the remaining £150 (plus a little extra covered by us) has been spent on food which has just been dropped off to ♥️

18/12/2022

Thank you again to all who attended the cafe - we are LOVING all of the photos - please keep sharing and tagging us in them!

We have made the first donation - £150 to for their ongoing and incredible work to help our gorgeous dachshunds!

Tomorrow evening I’ll do the shop and Tuesday will deliver to - I’ll pop a photo on of all we manage to get with that £150 too!

Can’t wait to see you all again in 2023! 🥳

17/12/2022

Get in loser, we’re going shopping 🛍🎄

The Sausage Dog Cafe

11/12/2022

Wow, what a day we had yesterday!!

Over 100 daxies walked through our doors (and a few daxie friends!) and we loved meeting every single one of them, and their humans!!

It’s been a long time since the last proper cafe event (December 2019!) and admittedly I was very nervous about starting again, but wow am I glad we did!!

A massive thank you to everyone who came, and thank you for sharing your beautiful photos in our booth (thank you Suzanna for this one, so cute!) please keep on sharing them as we are LOVING seeing them!

And thank you to all of our stall holders - I’ll lost their details again below incase anyone wants to order from them for Christmas (I know a few people wanted custom jumpers and snuggle sacks as they sold out quickly!)

Sammy in the tea room
Peachy Keen Bakery - cake stall
Wilbur & Me - Snuggle sacks, jumpers, snoods etc
Acacias Attic - framed & unframed prints
Little Wick Candles - candles, melts & diffusers
Stick n Mix - personalised baubles, cups etc
The Red Foundation - Emergency Dachshund Rescue UK - Christmas cards, gifts & tombola
Barking Mad Enterprises - cushions & bags
Hugo's Pawtisserie - dog treats & toys
Woof & Co. Maldon - Leads, harnesses, coats, bags etc
Betsie’s Grooming Parlour - treats, grooms & nails

Honestly thank you all so much for coming, it really meant the world to have you all there.

Please keep sharing & tagging us in your photos, please spread the word & keep an eye out for more events in 2023 🥰

Posts will come over the next few days on funds raised too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you ♥️

11/12/2022

The gorgeous Daisy & Millie joined us from The Daisy Hotel for Dachshunds yesterday! How adorable!!

08/12/2022

⭐️ TWO SLEEPS TO GO!! ⭐️

We are officially SOLD OUT too!!

We can’t WAIT to see you all!!

Don’t forget you can bring your festive outfits to use our free photo area; there’s no on-site cash machine and some stalls may not be taking card, so please do try and be prepared - there is a coop over the road if you get stuck though!

And if you have any surplus non-perishables you would like to donate to the Chelmsford food bank, please bring them for our box!

There’s 2 car parks on site; the easiest to get you to us is the one off Maynes Lane - just follow the white arrows to get to the entrance where you’ll be given a wristband - please remember if you did not pay for your booking, or have not booked; we are not permitting on the door entries on the day.

We can’t wait to see you all!!

Tammy, Wilbur & Daphne xo

07/12/2022

And last but by no means least, gorgeous will be bringing their gorgeous prints - available framed and unframed!

07/12/2022

are bringing their beautiful handmade candles, wax melts & room scents along too!

07/12/2022

are joining us too with their gorgeous handmade cushions & bags!

07/12/2022

will be with us Saturday with their huge gift selection, and tombola!

06/12/2022

will be with us, hosting a raffle for and clipping nails!

Wilbur & Daphne recently went for a groom and they looked SO cute!!

06/12/2022

are also returning Saturday, and have also been with us since the first event in 2018!!

Hollie makes DEFRA approved pupcakes and treats, and all funds go into ongoing treatment for her boy, Hugo!

06/12/2022

(who have been with us since the first ever cafe in 2018!) will be back with us with a selection from their gorgeous shop on Maldon highstreet!

06/12/2022

will also be with us with their gorgeous personalised items - and will be custom making with names & personalisation on the day too, so you can order and walk away with your items in your slot!