For four years of my life, I didn’t have a dog. My boyfriend at the time wasn’t interested in a pet and his son was very scared of dogs after being cornered by one when he was younger. When I married said boyfriend, he wrote into his vows that if I really wanted a dog, he and his son would learn to adapt, YES!
I started talking to the lovely ladies at AWLQ on the Gold Coast. Helen suggested that I foster some puppies as a way of introducing pets to my boys – and who could say no to puppies?
After 6 puppies had enriched our lives, Lisa, the Foster Queen, handed me two skinny, blind cattle dog pups with k9 cough and asked if I would be interested in fostering them until they were better.
Over the next month, the puppies hada multitude of illnesses including k9 cough, a wasp allergy and dislocating shoulders. They followed me everywhere, learnt commands quickly and stole our hearts. After the first month, they still weren’t 100%, so we held onto them for another fortnight. When they were eventually given a clean bill of health, I couldn’t imagine my life without these two bundles of happiness and we made a family decision to adopt.
Adoption day came around at long last and I was brimming with euphoria. The girls slept on my lap while Helen and I finalised the paperwork. It was such an exciting day! We named them Lolly Pop and Stevie Nicks.
The girls are now 7 months old, 20kg heavier and absolute angels. Sure, they’ve destroyed every single plant I had, 5 beds, a couch, many shoes and our garden irrigation, but we think they are perfect. They catch up with their mates every morning during puppy time at the local dog park and they’ve completed two stages of training with the K9 Centre South Brisbane. They love playing soccer with my stepson, attacking water from the hose, chasing bubbles, finding laps for cuddles and treating the compost bin as their pantry. They excel at digging holes, barking at possums and eating cat poo when I’m not looking.
Now that Lolly has almost finished growing, we are hoping to get her to her a specialist for a shoulder reconstruction in the coming months. I think we are all looking forward to a time when she can get up and down the stairs easily and won’t have her mum hovering over her while she plays.
As for us, I’ve lost 11kgs from all the walking we do; my stepson has changed from a video game kid to a kid that spends all his time in the backyard with his dogs and if you look very closely, you will see my husband pottering around his shed, chatting to the girls as they lay on their shed bed.
Thank you for our beautiful girls – we couldn’t love them more!
Rebecca Penfold
