It has been a while since I have felt able to write anything relating to our beautiful dog Lola. Losing her has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to experience and we miss her every day.
After we lost her, my husband and I weren’t sure when we would be ready for another dog to come into our lives permanently. Instead we thought we may be able to open our home to a dog in need, maybe an older dog that needed a family to be there for it during its final years. We knew just how important it was to do all you can for a dog whose body and mind was failing them and even though our hearts still hurt, we knew that Lola would have wanted us to make another dog’s life better.
We started looking at dogs that were available to foster on rescue sites. It is beyond devastating how many dogs out there don’t have ‘humans’ to call their family. I know that people sometimes look at rescue dogs as ‘damaged goods’ or that there has to be something ‘wrong’ with them but that just isn’t the case. Sure there are some poor dogs out there that haven’t had the best start to life or have experienced more than their share of trauma but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to become your best friend or can’t live a normal doggy life if they are just given the chance.
While looking at all the dogs out there that needed homes, the big ones, the small ones, the young ones, the older ones we came across a litter of puppies. There were quite a few in the litter but there was one profile that I couldn’t stop looking at. The name they had given her was ‘Tweety’ and all we knew about her was that she was a medium mixed breed female. It had only been two weeks since we had said goodbye to Lola and to be honest we weren’t sure if we were ready to adopt any dog let alone a puppy. But, like I said, there was something about this one and I just couldn’t stop thinking about her.
I got in contact with the organisation that were fostering her and made a time to go and visit her. The night before we were to meet her my husband and I sat down and had a serious discussion about how things were going to go, if we were doing the right thing by adopting another dog so soon and our reasons for wanting to bring another dog into our family. We decided that no dog was ever going to replace Lola nor did we want that to happen, we needed to be sure that she would fit with our lifestyle and other dogs that she was going to spend time around but ultimately we knew that she needed a home and if we could provide her with one then there really was no reason for us not to adopt her.
The only history we new about her was that she was that had been rescued from a Community near Canarvon with the rest of her litter mates at about 7 weeks and had been with her foster carer ever since (about 8 weeks). They had no information on her mum or what she had endured during her first weeks of life. What we did know immediately when we saw her waiting at the fence for us that she was the sweetest, gentlest, most beautiful puppy ever. We also both agreed that Lola would have definitely approved of her! It was no surprise to anybody when we returned home with her. We decided to call her Evie (it was important to us that she had a theme song just like Lola did).
Evie has now been with us for about 2 months and we couldn’t be happier. Every once in a while she ‘pull a Lola’ and do something so incredibly like what Lola would have done it’s uncanny. Thankfully though she doesn’t seem to be exhibiting any of Lola’s fearful or anxious behaviours, but as with any dog she is helping me grow as a trainer. We like to think that Lola has been showing her the way and giving her bits of doggy advice, sometimes helpful and sometimes cheeky.
We are definitely still interested in rescuing an older dog at some stage, but that will more than likely be once we have upgraded to a bigger house. Our current place is just big enough for two humans, a dog and a cat. No matter how things work out in the future we will always chose to foster or adopt a rescue dog as we believe that if we have the means and the ability to give them another chance then why not!