I grew up in Dunedin and it was back in the days were dogs roamed about during the day on their own and nobody raised an eyebrow.
A large Alsatian arrived at the park one afternoon and unusually I was on my own. We lived opposite a lovely catholic family who had produced about six or seven boys whose ages were similar to mine and my big bother Jason’s (who I call JJ because I could not pronounce Jason when I was very little).
We were able to play things like cricket with a decent number of bodies on each team, it was awesome. I wanted very much to be one of the O’Neil boys - they slept three to a double bed and got into and out of their home via windows! It just looked and sounded like a lot of fun to me.
Anyway, there I am on my own in the park and the large Alsatian arrives. I had on a bright red woollen jumper and I decided to run as fast as I could home so that the dog would not bite me. I suspect the red, the running child and no doubt the audible noises I was making all met in a perfect storm and before I knew it the dog had me down and was on top of me.
My family did not have a dog so I didn’t know the difference between rough and tumble play Vs vicious dog attack. Regardless of what the dogs’ intentions were that day the result was I became very afraid of dogs from that point onwards.
I remember collecting money for some charity with my mum and we went to all the houses that did not have dogs. We skipped any home with a pooch just in case.
So, dogs were just not for me and that was fine until I met a dog that I fell in love with instantly. He was a black poodle and his name was Herbie. Herbie had soft wee paws and the sweetest face and he was just “nice”. He belonged to Rose my darling friend who owns the colour purple.
She was going away for the weekend and asked if we could dog sit. I said YES immediately without thinking but it ended up that I loved every moment he was with us. I was actually sad when Rose came to pick up her beloved dog! I wanted to keep playing with my new fury friend - the seed had been planted.
A year later I brought my first apartment in Wellington Street in Perth and I was able to have a dog for the first time in my life. Very few rentals embrace dogs.
I phoned our local RSPCA to enquire if they had a small dog available? The response was an odd one - we have a wee girl here but we won’t let her go to just any home. She has been with us for three months and we have all fallen in love with her. I felt like I was off to be vetted by some small fury monarch and I was worried I would not live up to her standards! I wasn’t far off.
You have all seen the large cages that shelters keep dogs in - a large dog bed, water bowl and enough room for a dog to walk around. Well imagine one of those cages and in the corner of the bed is a tiny wee white thing with a pink nose poking out. Gracie weighed in at a whopping 2kg (an average cat weighs 4kg).
I wanted Gracie the moment I saw her and she seemed to feel the same way about me. To say that I was well vetted before I was deemed appropriate would be the understatement of the century. My paperwork was inspected by no less than three staff members. Even the vet popped out of surgery to give me a once over.
Her full history was blury - all they knew was that she was a teacup Maltese who had been handed in by the son of her original owner. Her owner had been a little old lady who had dementia. Because of this Grace was barely walked outside and lived her first six years inside a tiny apartment. She was well loved but terribly malnourished and had been fed lots of sweets and her teeth were a mess. When she was surrendered to the RSPCA her hair had been so matted, they had needed to shave it off. She also needed to put on some weight before the vet was happy to put her under and check out the condition of her teeth. She stayed with them for three weeks before they were able to safely put her under.
All shelters spend a certain amount of money on each animal but sadly when they find surgical issues sometimes it’s easier to put the animal down rather than spend the extra cash. When the surgeon got Gracie on the table, he realised that her teeth were rotten and she needed to have them all removed. He told the rest of the team he would need to euthanise her as it would cost too much. The team were having none of it and insisted they make an exception for this one.
Two staff members even took Gracie home to live with them but she was overwhelmed by everything. They both had other animals and Gracie didn’t know what an earth to do with them, she just sat shaking in the corner of the room. This was a dog that needed to be loved back to heath on her own terms and she needed someone to introduce her slowly to the world around her.
I need to explain that at this point in my life I was about a year and half into a two-year depression. Before I went to the RSPCA, I made a promise to myself and to any dog I brought home and it was this. I promised to walk the dog every day and to take it for regular wee breaks. This was a HUGE promise as there were some weeks I barely got out of bed.
So, I took this tiny slightly broken creature home with me and we got better together. Her first lesson was how the front door worked which took about ten minutes. Then we tackled the stairs. Everything was new to Gracie and so we went really slowly.
She ate everything a normal dog does and you would never have known she had no teeth except that her wee tongue stuck out the side of her mouth. It made her look like she was permanently concentrating hard on a task. The picture attached to this blog post is her, wasn't she just precious?
Gracie literally saved my life; she made me interact with the world outside. She got me outside physically and then people would stop us all the time to get a cuddle and of course we would chat.
I introduced her to the world for the first time while she in return slowly brought me back into it again. It was a symbiotic relationship in every sense of that word. We were inseparable and when I think of the word grace her face always springs to mind. Grace is something that is gifted to us whether we have earned it or not. Grace is the ultimate gift and that’s what she was for me - a gift I did not deserve but one I treasured none the less.
I cannot wait to see Gracie in heaven, I suspect God took her early because he missed having her in His garden. When she was very pleased about something she would ‘twirl’ and that garden seat Greg made for me is actually for her. The bench has a plaque on it that reads - “For Gracie, who loved to twirl”.
On many occasions I have felt her presence while I sit on my bench, she is just a whisper away from me and my arms long to hold her tiny wee body next to mine.
Soon.