Sandy's story

Again I find myself thanking you all for so many lovely messages. I can hardly believe in less than two weeks we have had two of our beautiful hounds taken from us.

Back in October when Sandy's tumour became really bad, she didn't at any point gave us the signal that it was time to throw the towel in and so the operation to amputate her leg went ahead. Yesterday Sandy did give us that look, the look that says I'm sorry Mum it's time for me to leave.

Poor little Gangley is beside herself with grief and spent last night laying next to Sandy trying to get her to wake up and howling quite literally.

This is Sandy's story
12/10/98 TO 28/11/09

After losing Poppit, Dill was so sad and missed the company of another greyhound, so we decided it was time to find him a friend. Our search took us to Ann at kama’s Cave. Ann had so many beautiful greyhounds all in need of a loving home but didn’t feel any of them were suitable to live alongside our smaller dogs Rocky and Rulu. We liked Ann immediately and admired the work she did, so we started to visit the kennels a couple of times each week to walk the hounds. This is when we met Sandy, poor Sandy never made eye contact with us never lifted her head not even when out walking she was completely and utterly closed down. After many weeks of walking her one morning as I went in to get her ready and I saw her tail give the tiniest little wag, that was it I was going to take her home!!! I told Ann and she said Sue she’s a cold fish and not for you but I was adamant and we took Dill and Rulu up to the kennels to meet Sandy. As soon as we let her loose in the compound she changed in an instant and became playful and I swear it was love at first sight, well for Sandy anyway, Dill was so sweet and gentle with her. He seemed to sense how fragile she was.

Sandy came home to us on 4th October 2004, and immediately made herself at home, all was well in her world until Dill died 6 months later, also of bone cancer. Dill was her safety blanket and she was always with him. Sandy once again seemed to withdraw and close down, demons from her past began to emerge with horrible nightmares. It took a long time for Sandy to once again find the courage to start to enjoy life again but with lots of patience she slowly re emerged and became the cheekiest little madam.

I remember saying to her shortly after she came home, you’re safe now sweetheart and I don’t care if you never kiss me it’s enough for me to know your safe, well true to form she never did give me a kiss, Eric yes, me no but it didn’t matter, she was safe and loved and she knew that. Other than Eric she adored Marc and would wag her tail like crazy when he came to see her. She was his special girl and woe betide any girlfriend who might try and muscle in.

One day we came home and found she had shredded a screwfix catalogue, oh my god it was like confetti everywhere, it took hours to clean up and from then on if we ever left paper or tissue out she would shred it. One day Eric left some important paperwork out and of course when we came home we found it shredded, she was very firmly told off and frog marched into the bathroom as a punishment, poor Sandy was so scared that she had an accident but when we let her out a few minutes later everything changed, it was like she thought to herself well if that’s the worst that can happen to me when I’m naughty that’s okay. From that point she decided life was okay.

Sandy was such a stubborn girl, when Eric would walk her and say “come on woo we’re going this way” she would stand still and refuse to move as if to say “no I want to go that way”. It became a regular battle of wills and used to make us laugh. When Sandy was happy she made little purring noises and you would say “Sandy are you happy” and she would answer with her happy purr.

Sandy eventually became the matriarch of the pack and as such certain jobs fell to her, like telling me at 3.20pm each day that it was time I started to get their tea ready, this was done by running up and down and barking very loudly. Another important job was to remind Eric when it was time for their walks, again lots of charging around and barking. Sometimes it was difficult to obey her demands because we would be laughing so much.

Sandy’s favourite place to lie indoors was in the hall, just outside the kitchen with her legs in the air or against the wall, this way she had every room covered and could see everything. Of course she also loved to kick her legs around when dreaming and eventually did a good job of wearing the wallpaper off. Outside Sandy loved to lie on the deck in the sun and roast, on hot days I would have to chase her in, she really was a sun babe.

Sandy started to limp in May and in June was diagnosed with bone cancer. By October we had no choice but to amputate or let her go. We chose to amputate as despite the horrendous pain she was in there was no way the woo was ready to give up. In the end we were only able to give her another 8 weeks, but boy did she enjoy those weeks, pain free and back to the wonderful, cheeky little girl that was Sandy woo.

We will always love you sweetheart……….



some of my favourite photo's of the woo (click on image to enlarge)