A little girl from Glemsford has seen her dreams come true after working hard to sell homemade dog treats to save up for the cockapoo she's always wanted.
After forgoing Christmas and birthday presents for two years, Lydia used her hard-earned savings to buy Tilly, who is now the star of a book written by her father.
Lydia said: "I can't believe my dream has come true! I love having Tilly and I now have a new best friend."
In 2018, seven-year-old Lydia started forgoing Christmas and birthday presents to save money towards her dream pooch.
After two years she invested the £1,500 she had saved into premium bonds and had three consecutive wins of £25.
Still a little way off her target, Lydia decided to start selling homemade dog treats in March 2021 to earn the extra cash.
Initially she was aiming to sell 100 packs over five weekends, but she ended up receiving 145 pre-orders in week one and earnt £600 in total.
Pooling her birthday and Christmas savings, premium bond wins, dog treat earnings and some inheritance money, Lydia managed to reach her £3,000 target.
The family decided to buy a cockapoo puppy, naming her Tilly after the Tilly Ramsay cook book that Lydia had taken the dog treat recipe from.
Lydia's parents, Matthew and Claire Ruffle, are "amazingly proud of Lydia's determination and hard work with the dog treats".
They also commended her on the months of research she put into responsible dog ownership, saying: "Tilly has fitted perfectly into the family."
Settling beautifully into life with their new puppy, the family took Tilly on a camping holiday to Kent where they met another cockapoo, Tag, who they discovered was born the day before Tilly.
Lydia suggested to her father that he write an adventure story about the cockapoo pair and Matthew got to work straight away.
In October 2021, he sent 'The adventures of Tag and Tilly' to a publisher and agreed a publishing deal later that year.
The book was released at the end of July this year and is sold by a variety of stockists in the UK, US and worldwide, including WHSmith, Waterstones, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Locally, the book can still be bought in independent shops including Mitchell's supermarket in the family's home village of Glemsford.
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