Woman aged 108-years-old says secret to long life was to have dogs and not children

A woman who recently turned 108-years-old reckons the secret to longevity is choosing having dogs over kids. Her logic seems sound, I’m not going to lie.

Ada Daniel was the proud owner of ‘a lot of greyhounds’ when she was younger and has previously joked that her preference for pooches has helped her live such a long life.

Ada has lived at Codnor Park Care Home, in Codnor, Derbyshire, since 2015 - and when her special birthday was approaching the home launched an appeal for cards, resulting in almost 300 being sent.

Care home staff surprised her with the cards at a party at the home, which also featured afternoon tea and balloons that had been donated following the appeal.

Facebook/Ashmere Derbyshire

Speaking yesterday (1 June), Kelly Goucher - activity coordinator at Ashmere which runs the home =- told the BBC: "Ada hasn't got a lot of family left. She never had any children so she doesn't have any grandchildren so we just wanted to get her as many cards as possible.

"She quite likes the fact that people know about her because of her age."

Kelly decided to launch the appeal on a local Facebook page and was shocked when she discovered how many people were keen to get involved.

"I woke up to 135 messages the following morning of people wanting to send cards," she said.

That number continued to grow, with almost 300 people eager to send Ada their well-wishes. How sweet is that?

The care home launched a similar appeal to mark Ada’s 105th birthday - which happened to fall during lockdown - and received more than 200.

Facebook/Ashmere Derbyshire

Kelly explained that Ada didn’t have children, which was possibly because she's more partial to dogs.

"She had a lot of greyhounds,” she said.

Kelly added: "She's definitely a character. I did ask her what her secret was once and she said it was to have dogs, not kids."

Although she’s racked up more than most, Ada was still very excited about her birthday.

Speaking to Derbyshire Times, Kelly said: "She's literally been on about her birthday since April and she's been on countdown to the big day. We didn't tell her we had made the appeal and the amount of messages we got was just through the roof. We've also had a lot of donations - so people have given us banners with her picture on and balloons with her name on."