Pooch was rescue dog No.3. In Portugal early one evening, I was looking out of the window of our restaurant and saw a dirty little creature walking up the road towards me. He was a ball of matted brown fur, that in places touched the ground. Poor little boy, he was starving and full of fleas and ticks. He was desperate to be touched and petted.
The people that lived opposite us gave him a little to eat, and he spent the entire evening jumping up at their window. The next morning, I was up early, eager to see if this dirty little boy was still there, he was, and he was so pleased to see me, I picked him up, took him in and fed him. Later that day I took him home with me. I washed him and cut great lumps of his fur off, and the next day took him to the vets for a check-up. He had a test for heartworm which unfortunately was positive. It’s a horrible disease, he was duly treated, he had a course of injections, and we were told to keep him calm, and not let him get excited, ha, with Pooch that was easier said than done. He was very ill, but a month later was cured, apart from taking heart tablets for life….. It had left him with an enlarged heart, leaving him with chronic bronchitis, and twice he has had bronchial pneumonia.
When Pooch was groomed it became obvious that he was a poodle.🐩
Whilst having my hair done in the hairdressers one day, my stylist said to me, see the lady sat next to you, well she was the previous owner of Pooch. With me not speaking Portuguese and her not speaking English, I asked my hairdresser to ask her why she had abandoned him. The woman told us it was because of her husband, he was horrible to the dogs, evidently she had three poodles, all brothers. So she dumped the dogs, one by one, one near us, one in the next village and one in the village after that.
I was very quick to tell her, that where I came from (England) we would have dumped the husband and kept the dogs.
Mino and I went looking for the other two dogs for several days, but there were no signs of them. We could only hope that someone had taken them in and given them a lovely home like Pooch had, although it was very doubtful.
He became my shadow, I now had two following me everywhere. Mino called Pooch, “cocca di mamma” ( Mummy’s boy ) He went absolutely everywhere with me. Everyone I knew, got used to the fact that where ever I was, he was. II loved him so much, but he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and I couldn’t save him. I’d had him 8 years, he was 5 when he found us.
He went to sleep in my arms in June 2011. 💔 I will always miss you my beautiful boy.
