Lucky's story

Thank you all for your kind words, it really does help knowing people understand the terrible saddness we feel at losing Lucky. This is Lucky's story.

Lucky

26/9/2001 – 22/2/2012

In July 2005 Lucky came to us with Dick and Tammy, an emergency had arisen at the kennels we helped out at. Eric spent the night making a large kennel in the garage and an outside run for them.

We already had Sandy and Jim our own greyhounds plus little Rocky and Rulu. In addition we had just that week got Mac our  (then but of course he also stayed) foster dog from Greyhound Gap! Eric was immediately smitten with Lucky. For a greyhound bitch she was huge and covered in scars and cigarette burns plus she had been labelled  “not small dog friendly” as she had allegedly attacked a JRT in her previous home.  To our knowledge she already had 3 homes that year and each time been returned, once because she didn’t like being left alone, the second time for eating a sofa and lastly for attacking the Jack Russell. In her defence she had gone to that home weighing a healthy 35kg but a month later was returned weighing 26kg. Straight away it became obvious that she was not a typical greyhound.  Usually they love to spend their days lazing around NOT Lucky she had so much energy, and was oh so smart.  At the end of their stay when she was due to go back to the kennels Eric asked me if we might also foster her and try and deal with some of her problems so she would be easier to rehome.

And so Lucky came into the house, muzzled and on a house lead which meant she was at all times attached to one of us just in case. Did she ever return to the kennels NO ……

Lucky quickly settled down in the house and never showed any signs of being small dog unfriendly, in fact she decided little Rulu was her Mum and as Rulu was my lap dog it followed Lucky must also be a lap dog, albeit a rather large one! Every day at 12.30pm I would take her outside and throw her ball and off she’d go, running circuit after circuit of the garden until she was exhausted. Whatever demons were in her past she was never able to play or run with the pack and always just watched from the sidelines. It saddened me so much that we never overcame this for her, but in her own way she was happy to have her one to one time.

When little Rulu passed away so suddenly, Lucky was inconsolable to the point where for 18 months she never came and sat with me or played our lunchtime game.  Gradually Lucky came back to us and went back to being such a happy cheeky little girl, if Vikki came to visit she would be so pleased she would nip Vik’s bottom and when Eric would start getting the hounds ready for a walk she would jump backwards the full length of the kitchen and then take up her position. This routine never changed. 

Lucky had a magically way of making everyone who met her feel special! She would gently lean into them and so many people had a huge soft spot for Lucky ducks.

At the beginning of December 2010 Lucky became lame and we immediately took her to the vets, neither the vets nor us could quite believe that like Dill, Mac, Sandy, Jim and Ranger she too had bone cancer BUT it was in the very early stages or so we thought! However Luckys cancer was different and was so aggressive that we had to decide to amputate her leg on the 23^rd December. We also had decided to follow up with chemo, which started 3 weeks later. All seemed to be going so well with Lucky getting stronger each day and then out of nowhere she became very poorly in the early hours of Monday 20 Feb.  Eric had to rush Lucky into the vets as she was struggling to breathe. Tom her lovely vet was able to X ray Lucky without sedation and discovered the cancer had spread to her lungs. We struggled on for a few more days hoping the anti biotics would help but they didn’t and Lucky’s quality of life was so poor we felt we had to let her go.

Losing Lucky is the end of an era, our last greyhound, all links with the original pack gone, words can never really come close to expressing the heartbreaking loss we feel at the passing of each hound. We can only be grateful for the happy times, the wonderful memories they leave us with and hope they are all reunited in a pain free place waiting for the day we are all reunited.

Lucky ducks the little lady who just wanted to love and be loved.

And boy did we love you sweetheart xxxx