Cassie's Tale

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

In the beginning

It’s only right that I begin Cassie’s story by telling you something of her life before she became a part of our rescue family. By the time she joined us, she had already had three previous owners, in the first two years of her life.

            It began, to the best of our knowledge when our friend, Linda, was walking her dogs one dark and rainy night, and she heard cries and whimpering coming from the direction of the garden of a house she was walking past. Being naturally inquisitive, Linda stopped to try and discover where the plaintive noises were originating from. She actually climbed the wall into the garden and there she discovered the source of the whimpering and crying, a tiny, wet and bedraggled, shivering little pup, with nowhere to go to get out of the rain. Linda was furious that someone had left the little pup outdoors in such terrible weather conditions and she knocked on the door of the house for quite some time until the door was finally opened.

            God only knows what the man who answered the door must have thought when he was suddenly confronted by this strange woman, wearing weatherproof coat and hood, with two dogs at her side and his puppy in the crook of her arm. She must have resembled a cross between Freddy Krueger and The Grim Reaper, especially when she launched into a tirade about his treatment of the puppy, (Linda pulls no punches when it comes to defending animals, I promise you). The way she told it, she asked him what the hell he was thinking, leaving that poor little dog out in the rain. She told him he didn’t deserve to have a dog, to which he replied, “I never wanted the thing in the first place.”

            Linda’s instant response was, “Can I take it home with me then, and find it a good home?”

            “Take it if you want it,” he replied, so she did, after first getting what details she could from him about the dog and getting him to sign a note saying he’d given up the dog to her.

            She learned that the dog’s name was Cassie, and that she was around twelve weeks old, and was a Yorkshire Terrier/Australian Terrier crossbreed. With that, she led little Cassie away to what she hoped would soon be a better life. Linda’s other dogs, Jet and Diesel, welcomed the tiny terrier into their home and it didn’t take Cassie long to dry out and feel the warmth of Linda’s home beginning to make her feel more like a twelve-week-old puppy should do. The very next day, she arrived on the field, where the regular group of dog walkers gathered every afternoon and Cassie was introduced to everyone. Linda would very much have liked to keep Cassie, but the terms of her home rental only allowed her to keep two pets and she already had two dogs and two cats, so was pushing things a bit already. So, she let it be known that she was looking for a good home for Cassie, and within a few weeks she told us that Cassie was going to live with an elderly couple who lived on her street. Nobody on the field knew the couple but Linda was sure they would give the little dog a good home. Time, however would prove otherwise, as my story will reveal, but for now, as far as everyone was concerned, Cassie was happy and on the way to a good future with her new owners.

Chapter 2

Summer 2007 

“What’s that,” I asked, as Juliet stepped from the car and walked down our garden path towards the front door, looking slightly furtive, semi-pregnant, with a bulge in her grooming jacket that failed to hide the very small head peeking out from under her arm.

            “It’s a dog,” was her sheepish reply, delivered with an almost guilty grin.

            Now, I may be many things, but blind isn’t one of them. I may wear glasses, and my eyesight is nowhere near perfect, but even I couldn’t fail to recognise the small creature that she was apparently trying to smuggle into the house, that warm sunny, summer’s day in 2007.

            “I can see it’s a dog, but what’s it doing here?” I asked. Of course, as Juliet and I spent our lives rescuing dogs and giving them new forever homes, I should have caught on straight away, or, maybe I did, and just wanted to tease her a little. I mean, did she really think I wouldn’t notice another dog running around in the house?

            Before I go on, maybe I should explain a little about the circumstances behind Juliet’s sudden appearance that day, with the dog tucked underneath her arm. Back in 2007, Juliet was doing pretty well, having recently begun her own mobile dog grooming business. She had a few regular clients and it was her fervent hope that she would be able to build her clientele substantially until she was able to really make a go of things as a dog groomer, having completed a course to gain her qualification. We were unaware, at that time, that she would later be struck by carpel tunnel syndrome that would destroy her dream. That day, she had set off to a neighbouring village to groom a little terrier, one of her regulars at that time. This was the dog that had once been owned by our friend, Linda, who had been instrumental in rescuing her from the appalling conditions she was living in. Although Linda later gave the dog to an elderly neighbour, soon afterwards, the neighbour and her husband announced that they were moving home and going to live in a sheltered accommodation bungalow in a nearby village. Linda thus waved goodbye to little Cassie, as she departed for her new home some weeks later.                                                                                                

              It was about a year later that Juliet first received the call to go and groom little Cassie and she regularly visited the little terrier in her new home in the coming months until that fateful day when she arrived home with the dog tucked into her jacket.

            So, having asked her what the dog was doing here at our home when of course she’d only gone to groom her, Juliet now replied to my question.

            “The lady didn’t want her and asked if I’d like to take her. She knows we take in rescue dogs and she told me she couldn’t walk Cassie properly any more. She uses a disability scooter to get around and can only take Cassie on her lead, attached to the scooter, for short trips and that’s not ideal. Where they live, it’s all open plan, so she can’t even let her out to run around in the back garden because it’s a communal area and the neighbours would complain. On top of all that, her husband hates the dog.”

            “How can anyone hate a little thing like that?” I asked, softening to the idea of adding Cassie to our family. 

            “Honestly, Brian, you should have seen him. He’s a bit of a slob, sat in a chair, watching daytime TV and never even looked up to acknowledge me when I went in to groom the dog, and when his wife told him Cassie was leaving with me (she must have planned this in advance), and asked him to say goodbye to the little dog, he didn’t turn around or look at her, and just said ‘Goodbye dog.’ He didn’t care about Cassie at all or that his wife was upset at letting her go. She at least wanted what was best for Cassie and knew it wasn’t the right place for her, being with them. When I walked out of the bungalow, she came to the car with me and Cassie and whispered to me that her husband detested the dog, saying that it wasn’t the kind of dog a man would want to be seen with, the pompous git.”

            I personally detest people with attitudes like the man she described and that really swayed my opinion into accepting that Cassie was moving in with us.

            “You’d better take her out from your jacket then and let’s have a good look at her,” I said, as Juliet slowly extricated Cassie from her jacket. I remembered Cassie vaguely from when Linda owned her but now, in close-up, I realised how tiny she was. Barely twelve inches long, she was a grey haired, little terrier with a long tail that curled upwards and with white ‘socks’ on the bottom of her paws. Because Juliet had just given her a good summer clip, she appeared to have ‘tiger stripes’ in her coat, with pretty golden stripes under her upper grey coat. In truth, she was a very tiny dog and we later found out from Linda she was an unusual crossbreed, between a Yorkshire Terrier and an Australian Terrier. Juliet further explained that Cassie was two and a half years old, though due to her size and unbridled energy, anyone could be forgiven for thinking she was a puppy of a few months of age.

            “Let’s get her indoors then, and see what the others think of her,” I said as we went through the gate and took Cassie into the garden where most of our other dogs were lying in the sunshine. Whether it was because she was so small, I don’t know, but the other dogs barely noticed her at first. Back in 2007, the make-up of our rescue pack was very different to today. There was no Sasha, Digby, Muffin or Petal, and no Sheba, Dexter or Muttley. Our ‘pack leader’ was Tilly, a highly intelligent, scruffy little Bedlington/Glen of Imaal Terrier crossbreed, who quickly took Cassie under her wing. They were both of similar colour, but Tilly was taller and longer and in fact, Cassie’s best friend in those early days was Sophie, our lovely brindle coloured whippet/lurcher. The only dogs we owned in those days who are still with us are Dylan and Penny. Dylan has been with us longer than any of the other dogs, having been with us for thirteen years. What great fun Cassie and Sophie shared together, running free on the local playing field, playing with a tennis ball. The pair even devised their own game, with them cleverly dropping the ball from mouth to mouth and then chasing each other around the field, finally dropping the ball at my feet for me to throw for them to begin their game all over again.

            So, for the next few weeks, Cassie gradually integrated herself into our rescue pack, and we began to see more and more of her personality. Despite being so small, Cassie was a little powerhouse, with an attitude to match. She took no nonsense from any of the other dogs, all of whom were larger than she was, and they all learned to give Cassie the respect she deserved. She slept in a bed in the kitchen with the majority of the pack, and woe betide any dog who tried to disturb her beauty sleep! They would get the full ‘Cassie treatment’ of her shrill little bark as if to say, “Go away and stop bugging my happiness.” 

            As the weeks turned into months, we were left in no doubt that Cassie had fully integrated herself into our family of rescue dogs, and life was good for all concerned.