Marcello & I moved into our first home together in 2018, the house was very empty & boring without a dog. Marcello wasn’t keen on the idea of introducing a dog into the family as he’s never had dogs in his life. I thought it would be a great idea to take Marcello to one of GAWA’s weekend adoption events to ask questions. Marcello didn’t even get past the questions before falling in love with Freckles at first meet. I suggested we take things slowly as he may not be a great fit for our lifestyle.
A week later, Freckles walked straight into our house & made himself comfortable on our couch within minutes. We quickly realised we were so out of our depth with Freckles as he suffered with sleep startle & was reactive towards dogs & our lorikeet. We had no experience with any of this so I questioned whether there was another family to best suit Freckles. Thankfully Marcello talked some sense into me & I put all my love into this scared, traumatised dog.
After lots of training & exposure, Freckles became such a loving & accepting dog. He became friends with other dogs, small or large & allowed many fosters into our home over the years. Freckles even co-existed with our lorikeet!
Freckles quickly became part of me, a lot of people knew me as ‘Freckles Mum’. Freckles introduced me to so many wonderful people over the years, I’ve even became part of a wonderful family & made lots of friends. I am so grateful Freckles came into my life when he did.
A couple years into having Freckles, he was diagnosed with a degenerative disc disease. This came with many challenges as he was restricted with exercise, but Freckles wouldn’t let this hold him down & we found a few ways to keep his mind happy & healthy. Some of his favourite activities were to get it the car & visit cows down the road & drive down to the river to cool off, this always lifted his spirits.
On the 19th of December Freckles made his final hurdle over the rainbow bridge at home on his favourite couch which he’d spend most of his days. Freckles was showered with love from day 1 to the final minutes with us.
A huge thank you to Ash for sharing your “Success Story” with us.