Many people grew up with Blue Peter and remember with fondness not only the presenters but also the pets.
A succession of animals including dogs and cats joined the team in the studio and were an integral part of the show.
Of course, with such a long-running show, a succession of Blue Peter pets retire. The BBC today announced two much loved animals — one dog and one cat — who’ve passed away.
Meg, a female border collie, appeared alongside Matt Baker for five years. She was his dog and accompanied him not only on the show, but on his farm, and subsequently on shows such as Countryfile and Crufts.
During her five year tenure Meg enjoyed a barking part in the world’s longest running radio serial The Archers, competed in sheep dog trials and passed a police sniffer dog challenge with flying colours!
In May 2005 Meg gave birth to her first litter of puppies – and Blue Peter cameras were on hand to follow the whole story. Of the five puppies, two became farm dogs, one became a sheep dog, Corrie trained to join a mountain search and rescue team and Ziggy became a hearing dog.
Matt said: “I picked Meg up as a 9 week old pup, I felt as soon as we met she was something special, and it wasn’t just her recognisable triangular ears! I never dreamt she would turn out to be my most faithful friend. Not only did she bring happiness to millions of children and dog lovers as a brilliant Blue Peter dog, always getting far more fan mail than me, she was; an action hero, full of fun and always had play at heart. She was renowned in the TV world as the ‘ultimate herder’ and loved rounding up cameras as well as our crew. All in all she was a real one off, we travelled thousands of miles together and I will always be proud to say she was mine. I will miss her greatly. She passed away in the sunshine peacefully at the farm in Durham and I laid her to rest in her favourite field looking out on to the sheep.”
Oke joined Blue Peter with his sister Kari and together they became the series’ longest serving cats. Kari and Oke belonged to an abandoned litter which was cared for by the Wood Green Animal Shelter at their sanctuary in Royston in Hertfordshire. Their unusual names were selected from hundreds of suggestions made by viewers, and are reminders of the 1991 Summer Expedition to Japan, where the presenters of the time John Leslie and Diane-Louise Jordan performed karaoke. They retired in 2004 and Oke, who was an incredible 21 years old, outlived his sibling, who died in 2006, by five years.
