Heidi - A Puppy's Progress (Family Of Rescue Dogs Book 11)

Book summary

Brian Porter and his wife welcome a tiny Dachshund puppy named Heidi into their family of rescue dogs. Despite a challenging start to life, Heidi thrives with their care and the acceptance of her new canine companions. This book chronicles her first year, capturing the joys and challenges of raising a puppy.

Excerpt from Heidi - A Puppy's Progress (Family Of Rescue Dogs Book 11))

The year 2023 began much as any year would for Juliet, me, and our happy little family of dogs. We hoped that this would be a good year for us, with no further heartbreaking losses after we’d been forced to say a tearful goodbye to our beautiful Sheba, at the age of fifteen, in April of 2022. Her osteoarthritis had finally taken its tragic toll on our little staffy girl who had sadly crossed the Rainbow Bridge, joining her best friend Sasha in doggy heaven. This new year saw us with six dogs in our home, little Cassie, still going strong at the age of seventeen, (now eighteen), Muttley, coming up to his thirteenth birthday, Muffin, Digby and Petal who were all ten years old, and our youngest bundle of joy, Honey, the baby of the family, at five years old.

Everyone was fit and happy and we had no idea that another tragedy was lurking around the corner, waiting to strike at our happiness yet again. It was a very mild weathered winter, no snow, little in the way of freezing temperatures and most days were quite warm for the time of year. Every morning, Muttley would join me and Petal on our morning walk and as always, we’d meet people during our walk, who’d invariably make a fuss of both dogs, especially Muttley, who had, over time built up his own little ‘fan club’ of people who’d grown to know him over the years. He loved the fuss they’d make of him, which was so nice, bearing in mind the fact that he’d struggled with agoraphobia throughout his life. In the afternoon, he’d come with me again, usually with little Cassie and again he’d lap up the attention he received from so many people. He’d really become quite a well-known character around the village.

Muttley’s birthday was on the 28th of February, and we duly celebrated it as he turned 13 years old. We made sure he enjoyed his special day, with extra treats and lots of love and cuddles. At the time we had no hint that there might be anything wrong with our little boy. Two weeks after his birthday, we noticed a change in Muttley. He’d always had a terrific appetite, and never left a scrap when it was feeding time. Over a period of about one week, we noticed that he was rather reluctant to clear his bowl in an evening, and when he was on his walks with me, he’d begun to refuse his treats during the walks. That was simply unheard of. What convinced me that he was definitely not himself was that in an evening, after Juliet and I had eaten our evening meal, Muttley would always stay close to me while I cleared the plates away, looking for any last-minute scraps he could scrounge from me. I never minded him doing that as I didn’t object to him ‘helping’ me to clear everything up in the kitchen. Now, he stopped doing his little ‘job’ and I knew it was time to make an appointment to see the vet.

The following day, I phoned the vet’s surgery and duly made an appointment which would take place within 24 hours. Muttley and I were at the surgery the following morning, and as always, the girls in reception made a big fuss of him. They’d always had a ‘thing’ about Muttley, and he was used to receiving lots of cuddles and fuss from the staff. After I’d explained the problem to the vet, she decided to carry out some blood tests on Muttley to help her in reaching a diagnosis.

Later that day, the vet called me with the results of the tests. It appeared Muttley had a problem with his liver function, and she asked me to bring him in again the next day so she could do further tests. Eventually she was able to inform me that Muttley was in the early stages of liver failure, but that there were various things we could do to alleviate the symptoms. Perhaps the most important thing was a change of diet, and she gave me the name of a proprietary dog food especially formulated for dogs with liver problems, together with a supply of medications.

Over the next few weeks, Muttley seemed to be doing well, and definitely enjoyed the new food. At the time, looking back, we recalled our gorgeous boy Dexter, who had also had liver problems, but who’d survived for over a year after being diagnosed before finally succumbing to the disease. About a month later, we sadly noticed a deterioration in Muttley’s condition, and I made an appointment for him to see the vet. After an examination the vet recommended that I leave Muttley with them for the day, so they could put him on fluids, as he seemed to be rather dehydrated. When I received a phone call later in the day, saying Muttley was ready, I immediately set off, thinking I’d be bringing him home quite soon. I was devastated however, when the vet brought him out to me, with his tail wagging, obviously expecting to be coming home with me. Sadly, she told me that Muttley’s liver had ceased to function, and he was in a lot of pain, which in typical Staffy fashion, he hadn’t let on that anything was wrong. I asked her if she was saying that we should let him go and she nodded. My heart seemed to leap into my throat, and I couldn’t believe what she was telling me.

I had the awful job of phoning Juliet to tell her that Muttley wouldn’t be coming home with me. Poor Juliet was in tears on the phone as I explained what the vet had told me, and she was clearly upset that she hadn’t even had the chance to give him a final hug, and a love. I felt even worse for my poor Muttley who was standing beside me with his tail wagging, obviously excited at the thought of going home with me to see his mum and all his doggy friends. I held him close to me, giving him all the love I could as the vet administered the injection that would end his pain and carry him over the Rainbow Bridge. The tears were running down my face as the vet gently touched my arm and said, “He’s gone, Mr. Porter.”

I just couldn’t let him go, and continued to hold and hug him for a few minutes, talking to him, saying I was sorry, and though he couldn’t hear me any longer, I hoped that somehow my little boy knew how much I’d loved him and eventually, I was able to let him go and laid him down gently and left him with the nurse, as I walked from the room to the reception desk. The girls behind the desk could see that I was visibly upset, and they told me to go home, and we could settle Muttley’s final bill in a few days when I was feeling better.

Muttley was gone and for the next few days I felt a great depression hanging over me. If you’ve read Muttley’s Tale, you’ll know about Muttley’s problems with agoraphobia and how I spent so much time with him, helping him to live a normal life, despite his fears of open spaces and he became very special to me.

What I didn’t know was that Juliet was already planning something that might help me to cope with the loss of my special boy. It was over week later that I first learned of her secret plan, though at first, I was totally against it.

To be honest, it was taking me a long time to get over the sudden loss of my beautiful Muttley. Once he’d been diagnosed, I really did think we’d have more time with him than we ended up with. In fact, just before he’d died, we’d bought a new bag of his special food and he’d only had one meal from it. That food was very expensive, almost £50 for the size we’d purchased from Amazon so recently.

I couldn’t bear looking at it every time I went into the cupboard when it was feeding time for the dogs. I talked it over with Juliet and we agreed to advertise the food on the local Facebook page.

“How much will we ask for?” Juliet asked me.

“I think we should advertise it for free,” I replied. “Obviously, whoever will need it will have a sick dog and perhaps this will help them keep their costs down a bit.”

“That’s a thoughtful gesture,” she agreed, and I put a post on the relevant local Facebook page and soon had a message from a lady asking if the food was still available. I gave her the details and she drove to our house within an hour. What a nice lady. She expressed her sorrow at our loss of Muttley and even offered to pay me for the food, as she knew how expensive it was. I appreciated the gesture but insisted she take the food and just hoped it would help her dog. She was extremely grateful and soon loaded the bag of food into her car and set off for her home. Being honest, I was glad to see it gone, as it reminded me so much of our special boy. Muttley, every time I saw it.

Of course, with Muttley gone, it meant I had one less dog to walk, and so I started taking Petal with me and Cassie on my early morning walk and alternated between Petal and Muffin on my afternoon walk. Lots of people who were used to seeing me out with Muttley would stop me to ask where he was and I would get quite upset as I explained to them, exactly what had happened. This meant that I found myself unable to shake off a lot of my own sadness and depression at Muttley’s loss.