Me & Rowan say “Hello”

Hi.  This is my first ever attempt at a blog, and I was holding off until I knew for certain that Rowan was indeed destined to be a Tripawd.  But despite more false dawns than I can list, yesterday the deed was done and this morning he is still at the vet surgery, being hand fed poached chicken and watched by the nursing staff there.

The surgeon is very pleased with his progress and he might be able to come home tomorrow.

I know that many blogs are told from the dog’s viewpoint, but I am taking to heart that for Rowan, his life will continue in a different way than before, but hopefully he will have many more years of pain free life ahead.  He has new things to learn, but he will not know grief in the way humans experience it.

So I want to focus on my own experiences as the owner of a beloved greyhound, who has contracted something horrible far too early in his life. I will use these pages to chronicle our journey, to offer hope to anyone else in this situation, but also to give me a safe place to explore my own feelings, fears and doubts in a safe and supportive environment.

The story so far ….

I have always loved dogs, but for all my adult life had to be sensible and accept that it wasn’t fair to have a dog that would stay at home alone most days.  Although I stayed at home until my kids were of school age, this was largely because my eldest, Josh, was born with severe health problems and in fact wasn’t expected to live much past the age of 3.  (He’s 27 now, so they got that wrong, thank heavens.)  When I did return to work, I surprised myself by very quickly carving out a very succesful and high profile career, involving a great deal of travel, and time spent at home was precious.

So, we always had rats, guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters and rabbits for the children.  I liked the rats best. And always at least 2 cats and sometimes as many as 4.  The kids grew and Josh left for University in Leeds then a career in London.  Naomi stayed closer, gaining a First from Manchester.

Then in 2006 there was a big organisational reconfiguration.  The only post I could have taken would involve too long a commute and at this point of my life I wasn’t prepared to do that, and so I was offered early retirement. I think my second or third thought was, “Great, I can have a dog!”

By this point I had discovered greyhound & lurcher rescue and in late November I adopted a rescue saluki cross girl pup, “Lola”, who had been terribly beaten as a tiny pup .. she was expected to lose her shattered hind leg, but the attentions of a very gifted hound savvy orthopedic surgeon, and lots of nursing, saved it.

We decided to see if we could adopt another young dog or pup, and were delighted to be offered one of a large litter born in October 2006 to a rescued racer from one of the big tracks in the English West Midlands.  Although I would have liked either a tuxedo or brindled dog, I was given the only red fawn pup in the litter .. a boy we named “Rowan”.  The lady running the rescue thought he showed a gentle spirit and wouldn’t be too boisterous for Lola.  We brought him home on New Year’s Eve 2006.

In late 2009 we moved from Cheshire to Devon.  A very large part of the decision to move from an urban area – we were in the commmuter belt for Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester – to a very rural spot was to let the dogs have more room.  We found a 15th century cottage in a tiny hamlet, with a big garden and set to making this our home.  My husband has a brilliant job 20 minute’s drive away and our daughter Naomi came with us, completed a Master’s degree at Exeter University and is still at home, doing part time work locally, whilst waiting for opportunity to knock!  As well as the hounds, we also brought our two cats, Alex, a red tabby DSH, and Munch the Merciless, a Mocha coloured Semi Longhair.  Both rescues.

Then tragedy struck.  In the Spring Lola discovered sheep and what fun it was to kill them.  After the first sortie, and despite spending almost £1000 on making the garden fencing lurcher proof, she managed to squeeze through a tiny gap (she was very skinny) and made her way into a neighbouring field where there was a pedigree flock of Dorset ewes and lambs.  We paid the farmer what he was owed, but Lola had to go – and quickly – somewhere well away from any sheep.  She now lives with two personal trainers on the Fylde coast where there are lots of sandy beaches but not sheep farming.

Rowan was devastated to be without his sister, and I tried frantically to find another little girl to join the family  I found a 16 week old whippet, who we named “Willow”.  Whippets are much more popular in the North than here in the SW and I was lucky to find one so close.  She has one blue eye so is no use for breeding or showing.  She dotes on Rowan, and just now she is so upset that he isn’t here, she’s not eating and is lying on my feet as I type.

I have posted a thread about the awful first days .. the shock of the putative diagnosis, which was a complete bolt from the blue, the misery of not hearing … the false dawns when we were given hope that it wasn’t a cancer, and then the crushing realisation that amputation was the only way forward if we were to give Rowan any sort of quality of life back. I don’t want to look back at that if possible.

So .. presently I am resting up pending his return either tomorrow or Friday, and hoping that the definitive results from the limb they took for testing will show that it’s something less aggressive than full blown OS.  There is no doubt that he was in dreadful pain, and I take comfort in knowing that the amputation will take that pain as well as his leg.

I will post here about his progress … and mine.  And I will try to find out how to post pictures and videos as we go along.

Thanks for listening.  Love Polly & Rowan & Willow the Whippet XXX