Golden Oldie Leo
I fell in love
The ‘get Leo on the bus’ post was shared to me. I, of course, saw through the detail and fell in love with the story! I applied for Leo, expecting to get another turndown, but the next day, I had a home check, and after many suitability conversations, the rest is history! Leo was guesstimated at being between 8 – 10 years old, and he landed into my world on 7th May 2020. This was only a few months after sending in my application, but long enough to overthink ‘what have I done!!’ ‘will he have learnt behaviour that I cant deal with’, ‘a large dog has a short shelf life’, ‘my application was successful because no one wants to take on an older dog!’ ‘WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!’
Time and patience
Seeing Leo in real life, looking into his wonky brown eyes, and seeing his gummy smile, my worries soon faded, and my heart took over from my head. I let Leo be Leo and soon learnt that all this old boy wants is reassurance that he is safe, a full belly, walkies full of new smells to investigate and his own space to snore his head off!! On walks, he gets a lot of attention as he’s grey around the gills. This gets a conversation going with other dog walkers, which allows me to share the 1 Dog At A Time story and find new friends along the way. This huge bundle of fluff may not be able to speak human, but he’s certainly helping to spread the word!
Doing my best for Leo
I often get told, ‘but you won’t have many years with an older dog!’ ‘you will go through the pain of losing him so soon’ True, but this is about Leo, not me. If I can give him a comfortable last few years and a life without fear, the ‘risk’ is worth taking. An excited bounce, a cheeky lean, paw swipe and swish of the tail to initiate play have reminded me that it’s the little things in life that matter and has made me think more simply about life in general.
Who rescued who
This old boy has unravelled me as much as I have unravelled him. I’ll never know Leos past or how he came to be wandering in the mountains all alone. I can only guess at his reactions to some things that he has a few bad memories, but his joy at hearing young children at play and loving them giving him attention might be a window to his past that wasn’t so bad.
