Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life

Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter

Mike Tindall says that his father-in-law pees outside when the dogs do.

On an episode of the Oh My Dog podcast, the 45-year-old former rugby player revealed that his father-in-law Mark Phillips – the former spouse of Princess Anne – has the odd habit of going to pee at the same time as his dogs when they’re outside together.

The topic was broached when host Sean Walsh recalled that his co-host Jack Dee revealed that when he lets his dog Dolly out into the garden to go to the bathroom, Dee joins Dolly and pees too. Walsh said, “They share wee wee time.”

“I think that’s just an old man thing,” Tindall defended Dee. “Because I might say that my father-in-law does that as well. He takes the dogs for a walk to go for a pee himself.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, he talked about the three dogs he shares with his wife and Princess Anne’s daughter, equestrian Zara Tindall. The couple own three dogs – two black labradors named Storm and Pepper, who are mother and daughter, and Blink the Brindle Boxer. Each of them is named after “power women” from Marvel Comics.

“The only times I’ve ever cried, well really ever cried, [was] when I had a bull Mastiff called Misty who died and then Cawley, who was Storm’s mum when she died as well,” Tindall shared.

At the age of 15, Storm has noticeably begun to move more slowly, which has led him and his wife to be wary of Storm’s health. “It’s difficult with her at the moment because she is, you know,” Tindall explained. “Unfortunately, she’s very old now and it’s getting to that sort of time where you’re asking the question, ‘is she enjoying what she’s doing,’ you know?”

“She’s just got no interest,” he added. “You shake a lead at her, you go out, you go outside. You have to sort of drag her outside. She’s like, ‘I don’t want to go’. And I’m like, ‘Well, yeah, you need to sort of go too.’”

Tindall shared that once Storm does her business outside, she immediately runs back inside, and flops onto her bed, ever the homebody. He called her a creature of habit and likened her to an elderly person.

“She’s like, an old human being. She hates noise,” he admitted. “So whenever she’s, like, happy as Larry, and then you get down for the breakfast time and she’s like, ‘Please open any door – I’m going to a different room because the noise is doing my head in.’”

The rugby player and the equestrian married in 2011, and share three children: Mia, Lena, and Lucas Tindall.

Read More