The Story of an Imperfect Adopter

This is the tale of an adopter of two Spanish Stray dogs, Elmo and Mollie. Otherwise known as The Rulers of the Household. Elmo has been with me for a year and Mollie nine months.

I grew up wiht dogs in my family since I was born, but for various reasons there hadn’t been one for about ten years. Then about three years ago I had my friends border collie for the weekend. That was when I realised what I had been missing for the last decade.

I live on my own and I work full time, so at first I thought that it would have to wait until I retired, but then I got to thinking about rescue dogs. Surely I could give a dog a better life than a kennel or even worse euthanasia? Not first prize maybe but better than what they had. It would take some managing but maybe it could work.

It didn’t take long to discover that UK rescue agencies wouldn’t touch me with a long pole due to the fact I work unless I lied my backside off which I wasn’t going to do. I understood their position, but I still felt I had something to offer. I travel to Romania each year on work so I was aware of the problems they have there with packs of stray dogs roaming the cities and towns, and I quickly found that this was a problem in several European countries – including Spain

To cut a long story short I decided to give it a go. I started with an email to the SSD adoption team explaining my situation as honestly as possible and asking whether they felt I could make a go of it and they gave me the green light!

So a year ago I collected Elmo from his foster home in Cornwall

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 Three months later I was back in Cornwall to pick up Mollie

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So after a year what have I gained?

• I used to live on my own, not as a hermit you understand, but now I have my little family
• Much needed exercise
• The wonderful knowledge that no matter what the rest of the world think of me there are two little creatures who love me.
• There are two more dogs with a home than there were. I think I’ve done a good thing even if I do gain much more than I’ve given

How about my dogs?

I made them both a promise;

• You’ll never be hungry again
• You’ll never be cold again
• No one will ever hurt you again
• You’ll always be loved

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As I said right at the start I’m not the perfect adopter. I’d like to be able to spend more time with them than I can. A whole family would probably be better. Elmo still has his demons which I worry about sometimes but overall I think they are happy.

I think they won second prize, but that’s got to be better than third, fourth or even worse nothing.

 My message to anyone out there who would like to adopt a stray dog but think you can’t is to consider the possibilities.

Ask SSD for advice. Explain your circumstances honestly. They will give you the advice and support you need during the adoption process and after You might still decide it’s not practical, but then again you might find yourselves waking up each morning with a delighted bundle of fur jumping all over you!

This post was written by SSD Adopter Alastair Forbes, dad to Molly and Elmo