Ok, this girl is EXTRA special, she has an amazing story behind her and one that is very very close to my heart, so excuse me if the intro to this blog post is quite long winded!
Cast your minds back to July 9th 2010, a little blue staffy appeared on Four Paws Animal Rescue’s forum called Sadie. She came from a pound somewhere up North, was due to be put to sleep and had a severely broken leg, which vets thought could not be saved. Below are a couple of pics of her in the pound with her poorly leg
She had numerous operations to try and save her leg, which cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds, something that a small charity like Four Paws could simply not afford. So, I thought I’d help, being an averagely keen runner, I thought I’d run my first ever half marathon for Sadie. I ran the Bristol Half Marathon, and raised £450 to go towards the cost of her operation. Her leg was saved!
Early in 2011, Sadie found herself a new home, but unfortunately, things didn’t work out for her at that home, so she came back into foster care at Four Paws. I met Sadie lots of times at various dog shows and was totally in love with this big cuddle monster of a staffy, if we had had room for another stafford, she would have been coming home here! Mid 2011 came along, Sadie was still looking for her forever home, she had been waiting for a year at this point. Kirsty from Four Paws asked me to take some photos of her and Sadie for use in some literature for Four Paws. One of the photos I took that day is below, I posted it on my Facebook page, little did I know that doing so would totally change Sadie’s life forever.
The photo that changed Sadie’s life forever, proof that photography can help hard to home doggies get their forever homes.
One of my old (don’t worry Anna, not calling you old!) work colleagues, Anna and her lovely other half John, stumbled across the photo you see above on my Facebook page, and fell in love with Sadie. They wanted to re-home her…a few weeks later and she had finally found her forever home and a new name, Cookie, with Anna and John. She really could not have hoped for a more loving family, Anna and John are always cuddling her, always making a fuss of her and always showering her with love. They really are awesome doggie parents, you only have to spend a short amount of time with the three of them to see that they are all totally besotted with eachother. It is stories like this that make the very emotionally challenging task of taking photos of dogs needing homes worth while. I am not afraid to admit that a lot of time when photographing rescue dogs I am fighting back the tears, so when re-homing stories end like this, it gives me an awesomely warm, fuzzy feeling inside!
It really made me stupidly happy that Sadie/Cookie had finally found her forever home, after all she had been through it was a real joy to see her happy in her new family. A massive thanks to Anna and John for booking me, just look how happy Cookie is, and to think…she was on the point of being put to sleep, amazing the difference that charities like Four Paws make.
by ian@poochography
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