Following on from the last blog post and all the ups and downs, I felt I had to let you all know about another major low point in 2021 for us! As you will all know in April and May 2020 we adopted 2 retired racing greyhounds after the loss of our beloved Fifi. Fate intervened and we took on Bo and Tiger and they’d been with us for over a year and a half! They had been loving life and enjoying their retirement, with a sofa to curl up on, walks galore, snuggles and holidays. Fast forward to October and life took unexpected turns and didn’t exactly go quite to plan, but I won’t go fully into that just now, with all the things we’d got going on both Bo and Tiger had been absolutely awesome with both the girls and myself!
For those who know what twists and turns life has taken for myself and the girls since the end of September will be aware how much comfort both dogs have given us, more so Tiger who since mid September when we lost my wonderful Nan became such a comfort to me, he was basically sleeping near my head every night. They say dogs have a sixth sense when your feeling sad or ill and I truly believe this whole heartedly, and my Tiger boy was the best at snuggles, our gentle brindle giant. I still can’t believe I am actually having to write this in words because it still really hurts, but I owe it to our boy to get his story out there further. So here goes, with the nights darker and colder along came Halloween and then inevitably bonfire night! Now I am not a bonfire night or fireworks hater, I love it as much as the next person normally! But November 5th 2021 was a whole different ball game and left myself and my girls and our fur-baby girl Bo heartbroken, so little back story the night before there had been a huge fire works display a few housing estates down from ours for Diwali celebrations! Now the year before it hadn’t seem to have bothered either dogs so much but there weren’t so many fireworks about in 2020 because of the pandemic being completely rife then.
This night was completely different and although Bo seemed reasonably unaffected by the large bangs from all sides around our house, our Tiger was completely and utterly destressed by it all and really not coping well at all! With my girls out that evening with their dad at a larger bonfire/fireworks event I was home alone with the dogs and did everything I could to comfort both dogs, using scarves over their ears, curtains closed, tv on loud, and even tried Classic FM’s special pet show for the occasion to keep them calm. Unfortunately none of this helped my boy at all, no matter what I did he was literally petrified and wouldn’t even eat his food. I tried leaving him to it because the more you fuss over them the more stressed they can become, so with Bo upstairs in my dark bedroom with the tv on and Tiger down with me, I waited on the return of my babies from their evening out with their daddy. Tiger continued to pant, pace the room and completely shake to the core and there was absolutely nothing I could do for him which was completely and utterly heartbreaking. With my new situation at the time I happened to be in regular contact with relatives, and this evening was no different, my cousin called me to see how I was doing and how the dogs were coping as she also has a dog and he too wasn’t coping well! Tiger had been pretty quiet for about 30 minutes or so I had thought he’d lay down and finally managed to calm, but talking to my cousin I felt compelled to get up and check on him as he was behind the sofa lay down. It wasn’t till I looked I realised my gorgeous gentle giant Tiger Waffle hadn’t calmed as I first thought, mine and the girls gorgeous fur-boy had left us and his fur-sister Bo. He had what seemed a massive heart attack due to the amount of very loud fireworks that evening.
Being on my own, in a way a god send because I couldn’t have the girls seeing him!! Luckily my cousin kept me sort of calm on the phone but as soon as I put down the phone to call the girls dad to tell him to keep them out I was a complete mess and didn’t know what I could do as he was a massive dog and I could not move him alone. I ended up calling my brother in a blind panic and he literally came to my rescue with the aid of my dad. Within 10 minutes of me calling they were both here, my brother having to scoop me up off the floor because I was inconsolable and didn’t want to believe my boy had gone. I felt so angry that this happened, our boy is still with us in spirit and always will be, it has left a massive hole in our lives and I would never take on another brindle because it is just too heart breaking now and every brindle greyhound I see reminds me of our boy.
It took a few days, but I took a complete u-turn and decided I wanted to contact my local newspaper as I didn’t want our boy to have died in vain, so I bit the bullet and sent a message to them explaining what had happened, never actually expecting anyone to come back to me. But just a few days later I heard back and they wanted to hear more so I spoke with a journalist and had a photographer come to take some pics of myself and Bo. For the full article please see the newspaper link https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/telford/2021/11/09/family-left-shattered-after-dogs-suspected-firework-induced-heart-attack/
After this article was published things took a strange turn, and it was picked up by an ITV news reporter which took me totally by surprise and being on camera is not something I would normally do, but for my boy I would do anything just so his death wasn’t in vain. For anyone interested in seeing the tv interview I will drop the link here for anyone to check it out. https://www.itv.com/news/central/2021-11-09/dog-dies-after-suffering-suspected-heart-attack-from-firework-noise
After all this and all the love and support we received as a family Tiger’s story was also picked up by the Birmingham mail online as well which is amazing and means Tiger’s story has been shared far and wide through the powers of social media https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/mums-anguish-dog-scared-death-22122943
Life without out Tiger boy has been dam hard, its been just over 2 months without him and we miss him everyday, in the days following his passing fate intervened with our Bo pining for her brother, I had been in contact with the amazing Dudley Greyhound Trust where we had adopted our boy from to see what support we may be able to get for our girl and although dubious at first I was asked by the lovely lady who runs the Dudley trust if I would be open to take on an emergency foster boy who’d just lost his elderly owner and had not lived in kennels so may not cope. I agreed to meet this dog and see if him and Bo took to each other with Bo pining for her big brother. So as fate would have it we met Karlos and him and Bo got on like a house on fire and fast forward 2months later and we are still fostering Karlos. He has fit in to family life almost like he has always been here, healing our hearts a little after losing our beloved Tiger boy, he has really settled Bo down and made her less sad after losing her brother. For anyone thinking of taking on a retired racing greyhound, Do it! They make the most amazing family pets, they can be so loving and we have been so lucky to have the most amazing retired racers as pets over the years. Do check out Dudley’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/gtdudley or look at the official greyhound trust https://www.greyhoundtrust.org.uk/
Thank you so much for all the continued support it feels great to be writing again and there is definitely lots more to come from me over the coming months.
Kayleigh x
