Living with a rare illness...: Saved by a Labrador called Laddy... Dogs can be a saving grace when you are poorly and lonely...

Saved by a Labrador called Laddy

My lovely Labrador; Laddy!!

I'm skipping forward a bit here to present day, okay so not a bit but a lot of time has passed since we last delved into my life. Today I want to talk about my Labrador; yes you read that right lol

"A dog wags it's tail with it's heart"

Martin Buxbaum

I loved dogs as a kid, I was always finding strays that I begged my parents to let me keep and I loved my grandparent's dogs with a passion. My Nan here, in Preston, had a black Labrador cross called Toby and my Nanna and Grandad, who lived in Kent, had Honey the poodle.

Pets always show you love, they don't judge, they don't go by appearances but rather how much you feed them haha, no food obviously is a BIG pull for pets, especially my Labrador, as I have discovered but so too is the way that you treat them. Show a pet, in particular a dog, love and you get it back a million times over.

I was never allowed a dog of my own growing up and over time I started to realize that I didn't really want one. I grew into an adult that thought there was too much yukky business that came with having a dog and that they were far too much work and extremely tying; I wasn't wrong!

"A dog is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself"

Josh Billings

I had been through a lot of heartache in the months leading up to us getting Laddy, there had been a great deal of upheaval in our lives and my illness had really started to take hold, I had had to give up work, but at that stage didn't yet need Amy at home as my full-time carer; I was lonely.

I desperately wanted company at home as while I wasn't yet at my worst I still could not go out much and was stuck in doors with nothing but a big dose of daytime TV to keep me entertained. I needed someone to love, to devote myself to, I wanted a baby but it wasn't happening so in my search for someone to cling hold of I decided a dog could be the companion I was searching for.

It wasn't hard to convince Amy, she had grown up with pets and had been on about getting a dog the whole time we had been together, so we began our search for the Chosen One lol and not long later we met Laddy.

Laddy on his journey home

We went to a farm to meet Laddy, he was there with his brother and sisters, there were just the two boys left looking for their forever home. We hadn't made the decision yet on whether Laddy would be ours but the second he and his sister took it upon themselves to undo my shoe laces with their teeth we knew we'd found our boy!

A couple of weeks later and we were bringing him home, Amy was stuck in work so I went to collect him with our nephews Brandon and Bradley. He didn't take to the car and was in Brandon's arms crying all the way home. I had no idea then what we had let ourselves in for...

Laddy laying in my arms to sleep; just like a human baby, wrapped in his blanket

Having a puppy was more work than either Amy or myself could ever have imagined, not to mention that our puppy happened to be a Labrador that was scared of his own shadow (and still is! lol) He would cry all night if we attempted to leave him downstairs, he wanted to be cradled in our arms, swaddled in a blanket, just like a baby, don't ask me how we came to figure this out! haha

He was the sweetest, cutest little thing and was adored by both our nephews but he was scared of everything. Once we had nipped out for a very short amount of time and when we got home discovered that the neighborhood kids had managed to breach our back gate because they wanted to see Laddy, they were little kids so could be forgiven.

We deduced that it was them by the ice-cream hand-prints left on our conservatory door lol anyway you would have thought that this open gate and door would signify missing puppy but no; he was hiding in the conservatory behind the television and shaking like a leaf.

He has been such a comfort since we got him; but he came with a lot of trouble too...

Laddy was every bit the comfort I had been searching for, the companion I longed for while Amy was at work and the distraction I needed from the fact that my illness was sending my life swirling down the proverbial plug-hole.

That all came with a price though, trouble with a capital 'T' he once managed to lock us out of our house and then cried because he was stuck on one side of the door and us on the other! The wrong way round too; it was us stuck outside! It turned out that leaving the security key in the bottom of the door and going out was not a good idea as he had taught himself to turn it with his mouth :-0

"Silence is golden; unless you have a puppy. Then silence is suspicious... very, very suspicious."

Unknown

Laddy was good at tricks like that; he once used the same technique to turn the washer tap in the kitchen and cause a flood of a few inches of water. The washing machine had not yet been plumbed in as we had just moved and he managed to turn the tap that goes to the machine with his mouth. He was in the kitchen, after his last antics, while we nipped out. We got home and I opened the kitchen door to a face full of water and a puppy sitting with his head cocked to one side in a pool of water.

Incidences like this came thick and fast during Laddy's puppy years, but they kept me alive, like when we had just had a new hallway carpet fitted and got home to Laddy sitting in the hall, carpet pulled back and a piece of underlay hanging from his mouth. At first his eyes bugged as he had been caught in the act and then the defiance; he started chewing the underlay like bubble-gum!

Laddy with his favouruite puppy toy; his bulldog teddy (We still have this)

There was so much to contend with when Laddy was a puppy that on numerous occasions we wondered whether we were cut out to be the parents of a sprightly Labrador. He challenged us over and over again but what I didn't realize at the time was that he was keeping me going.

They say that dogs are great for people that are poorly and whoever they are they are right. Getting Laddy when we did gave me something to fight for, because I could have easily curled up in a ball and said that the illness was too much to contend with, even then.

"There is no better medicine when you are sick than a dog who thinks his love will cure you."

Unknown

I hadn't yet become so poorly that I needed Amy at home with me, that wouldn't be far off to be honest, but at the same time I was struggling with the day to day activities that come with running your own home. I was trying to be a house-wife so to speak as I felt that I needed some sort of purpose but the constant lethargy had started and the pain was beginning to take a real hold; it was all becoming too much.

I felt like crying most of the time, like just not getting out of bed at all, but then there would be the whimpering state that was our puppy to look after. Little did I realize at the time that he was looking after me too.

Laddy with a Christmas treat; a giant rawhide bone

He is now three-years-old and we still have some crazy situations with him; like the other week he was trying to get his Bulldog teddy out of a box on the shelf and managed to pull said box down into his bed. It took a few days for him to go back in his room and into his bed. He was completely unharmed but had terrified himself with a box!

My sister says he thinks he is a human baby; I am inclined to agree haha, when I was choking once, as is an occupational hazard of having MRS (throat swelling) he jumped up onto the couch and proceeded to whack me on the back with his paw. I think you would have had to have seen it to believe it completely; but I assure you it happened. He was given a lot of treats for that one lol

"There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face."

Ben Williams

When I am feeling really bad he seems to sense it, he is never as rough with me when he plays as he is with Amy, it's like he is aware that I can't take it the way she can. I never thought I would be so soft about a dog but I am; I am a convert to life with a four legged friend.

We will never, ever give up on him, no matter what he is ours forever, as we technically adopted him, we took him home as a puppy and became his human parents and he knows nothing else. We are devoted to giving him a happy life and he is devoted to food haha, no seriously he is devoted to us both and to our family; he loved us all.

Laddy in his jumper; red is definitely his colour

Every time you enter a room his tail wags with such enthusiasm that his whole rear end wags too; we call it his 'waggy-bum' I don't think there is ever anyone else who is always happy to see you. Don't get me wrong he can be very antisocial and loves his own company; laying in his room, in his bed, but you can feel the love emanating from him in waves when he is with you.

I am not comparing having a dog to having a child but as ridiculous as it may sound; he has filled a gap in my life and a whole in my heart. I have wanted children for as long as I can remember and finding out that that may never happen for me at all just about killed me. It was and still is the worst aspect of my illness to me. If I didn't have Laddy to love, and my nephews of course, I know that I would be lost.

I have been saved by a Labrador called Laddy and he's mine...