Beautiful Belle the lurcher was adopted from the Oldies Club dog rescue in 2014. This gorgeous girl is now about 15 years old and we’ve had this lovely update from her family.
“I fostered Belle just over 6 years ago for the Oldies Club. She was over 8kg underweight and looked very meek and mild, but over her first week she started regaining strength and her real character emerged. She got into a few scrapes, including diving into a huge thorn bush chasing a cat, and also escaping to take herself off to the local park. Thankfully, I’d only taught Belle one way to the park, the long way avoiding all roads!, so I was able to drive to the park before her and put her on lead. She could have gotten there sooner I found out later but she had stopped to say hello to everyone she met on the way!
Belle is a huge character. She’s part whippet, border collie and saluki so she’s clever and a bit OCD. She’s desperate to run and play but as she has huge prey drive I’ve had to be careful where I let her off lead, so this led to me forming a Lurcher playgroup where up to 10 dogs meet in a secure dog field and can run as much as they want. I’ve also joined various Sighthound walking groups so that she can find playmates. I’m quite shy so I’ve been forced to socialise more so that Belle could meet up with her running buddies.
Belle loves her food and as a result has been trainable and she now walks off lead a lot of the time (except where there are cats nearby). She enjoys life to the full: loving her sleep (she makes it clear from 7.30pm onwards that she would like everyone to go to bed so she can get on with sleeping), her food and her walks and meeting her running buddies.
Belle is around 15 now and has a brain tumour, and minor heart and lung problems, and they’ve slowed her down a bit, but thankfully her gabapentin pills have reduced the frequency of her seizures so she still has a very good quality of life and wakes up each day positive and keen to get out and greet the day, and she can still hold her own racing much younger dogs at our lovely local park.
I haven’t regretted adopting Belle for a second and it’s been, and continues to be, a fun and enriching journey.”
Wow, it certainly looks like Belle really is living her very best life, and long may that continue.