It doesn’t feel right to start a blog about my rescue dog Flossie without mentioning her much loved predecessor, Dotty.
Dotty was the first dog who was all mine. I’d grown up with dogs all my life. I loved them all, cried buckets whenever it was time for them to leave us, and always knew I would have a dog of my own one day.
That time came when I was 33 years old, in the shape of an adorable, wilful puppy called Dotty.
Dotty was born in a pub. Well, she wasn’t actually born IN the pub, but her parents, both human and canine, lived in a pub and she was the result of an unplanned litter of puppies. She was also born on my birthday so it felt like it was meant to be.
An extraordinary dog
Dotty had crinkle-cut fur which, as she aged, grew more and more sheep-like. I have never come across a coat so extraordinary. She looked like a woolly black labrador with ears and paws that were definitely a size too small and a constantly wagging tail with a distinct kink in it.
She had amazing eyes. In the early days they were full of mischief and, occasionally, defiance. As the years passed by, they exuded more wisdom and charisma than most people I’ve met.
There was a very special soul behind those penetrating eyes. She had presence and it was a privilege to share her life for 13 years.
Paving the way
Don’t get me wrong, there were times of frustration and worry with her. She was naughty. She stole food and she didn’t always come when I called her. Ok, she NEVER came when I called her, especially if she was busy doing more important things like rolling in something unspeakable.
Any type of poo would do – deer, badger, horse, cow, fox and even (shudder), human, on a couple of occasions. Oh, and dead bodies. She once rolled in some poor animal’s carcass that was so putrid, I gagged for an hour while I tried to wash her. Remember that crinkle-cut fur I mentioned? Well, it was thick. Very thick, and the aroma of anything she rolled in seemed to linger in its depths, for weeks.
One day there will be a book about Dotty, and I’m sure she will be referred to often in this blog, but for now, I just wanted to mention her, and the importance of her, before I start writing my blog about my second beautiful girl, Flossie.
Dotty was also endlessly entertaining. We found ourselves in many funny situations, like the time she discovered a couple having a romantic moment on the beach and devoured their picnic while they watched, speechless. Or the time she consumed an entire tray of frozen canapes carefully laid out by my mother, ready to put in the oven just before visitors arrived.
But I learnt so much from my time with her, and her mischief paved the way for the next dog. She ensured that I received a thorough foundation in what it’s like to live with a remarkable creature. The responsibility, the unconditional love, the hilarious moments, the new-found and unexpected expertise in the identification of rural poo types, the stress, the worry and, ultimately, the heartbreaking grief.
End of an era
In October 2016 Dotty left us. It was hugely painful, as I always knew it would be, and I’ve written about it for a book called Gone Dogs.
Pet bereavement is a topic in itself and one I will no doubt return to. Suffice to say here that the pain of losing Dotty is not something I would wish on my worst enemy and it was truly debilitating for a while.
We’d been through a lot together, not least her diagnosis of cancer when she was seven and the five year challenge that followed to preserve her life.
It claimed her in the end, which was not unexpected, but I am comforted that she had a long and happy life and that we did our absolute best for her.
After she’d gone, my partner Graham and I didn’t know how to live with the massive void she had left. She was the third member of our family, and she just wasn’t there anymore.
And, not only did we not have our beloved Dotty, but we had no dog, and that felt very, very weird. We went for walks on our own, to get out of the house, to try and blow some cobwebs away. It felt so strange. I kept looking around for Dotty, so used to checking on her, thinking I’d heard her paws shuffling through the Autumn leaves or the light jangle of her collar as she trotted up to us. But she wasn’t there. We were dogless, and it didn’t feel right at all.
New beginnings
Six empty weeks later I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed one Sunday afternoon when I saw a photo of Flossie, or ‘Austen’ as she was called then. We had already decided that we would like another dog and felt strongly that we wanted to rescue one.
We’d been to visit our local cats and dogs home, but we hadn’t felt a connection with any of the dogs we’d seen. I’d been half-heartedly looking around, prepared to wait until ‘the right one’ came along. I followed and supported several rescues, both in the UK and overseas, and it was on the Facebook page of one of these that I found Flossie that Sunday afternoon.
My finger paused when I saw her photo. It literally jumped out at me. I had scrolled through hundreds of dog photos already, but this one stopped me in my tracks. I can’t really explain what happened but it felt like something was pushing me towards her and I felt a sense of urgency that I had to do everything in my power to try and get her.
But, she was in Cyprus. This was not something I had planned. How would this work and could I adopt a dog who I hadn’t even met..?
Read the next post to find out what happened next…
Suzy Pope is a versatile lifestyle writer and newspaper columnist. If you would like help with a writing project, please get in touch.
