I’m Sandra Piddock, and I’m a freelance writer, dividing my time between Spain and the UK. I’ll write about anything that interests and/or challenges me, and I like to focus on the lighter side of life whenever possible..
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Luna is my Spanish rescue dog. She came to me in July 2019. I had no intention of adopting another dog at that time – I was still griveing the loss of Paddy in March 2019. As it happens, it’s the best thing that could have happened for both of us. We’re helping each other heal from the traumas of the past two years, and we are moving into the future together, with love and joy, after so much sadness. We’re a team, Luna and Me!
Luna has been with me for almost two years now, and finally, we’re starting to address the issues she has as a result of being abandoned three times in the 18 months before she came to live with me. She’s been beaten, used in fights and lived as a street dog, and although she’s the most loving dog, she’s also feisty, independent, and needs to learn some manners!
She started to finally settle with me when I brought her back to Spain in September 2020, after almost a year in England due to family matters and Covid. It’s like she suddenly thought, maybe I really HAVE come home now. Things moved further in the right direction when I was lucky enough to find Smart Dog Academy in Daya Vieja. Academy owner Teresa believes in making training fun and using positive reinforcement to build a bond of trust and co-operation between dogs and their guardians. She also runs private sessions for dogs like Luna, who have problems with distraction and trust, and she advised that this would be the best path to take initially.
Luna has clearly never been allowed to just be a puppy, due to her start in life, and she’s making up for it now. She sees everything as a game, and doesn’t think about respect for other people’s space or property. Like I said, she has no manners, and while she might be a female dog, she is nothing like a lady! Add snoring loudly and farts that could easily be adapted for Weapons of Mass Destruction, and you can see why I introduce her like this:
This is Luna, short for Luna-tic!
Several months of hard work and patience is finally paying off, and Luna’s behaviour has improved in ways I could never have dreamed of. However, despite her best intentions, she frequently goes off the rails. Luna being Luna, she doesn’t do things by halves either. She’s like the little girl in the nursery rhyme with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When she’s good, she’s very, very good, but when she’s bad, she’s horrid!
Luna came to me through an appeal of Facebook to take her in until a home could be found for her, and as such, she’s instantly recognisable in the area. Many of my Facebook friends follow her adventures, and one of them, Carolynn Barclay, wrote this lovely poem for her:
Luna
Luna and me, we got thrown together.
As soon as we met, I knew it was forever.
She’d issues galore, that I knew we’d to treat.
But I loved her so much, I wouldn’t be beat.
We headed to classes, training a must,
We struggled, we fought, we had to gain trust.
We’d to challenge the fact, she loved to chase bikes,
Skateboards and cars. Whatever moved! Yikes!
We give her a toy, and it’s destroyed right away.
But that’s no reason to tell her, she can no longer stay.
There’s none of us perfect, we all just need love.
I know that our Luna, was sent from above.
The joy that she gives me, and the love I get back,
More than makes up, for when she goes off the track.
We’ll get there I’m sure, as I never give up.
With the help of my Angels, I’ll have the best pup.
At the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2020, Carolynn started writing poems every day to pass the time and lift her own spirits, and those of her readers. A year and 600 rhymes later, Carolyn has published her first book, My Life of Rhyme.
Carolynn has a real talent for getting to the heart of the matter and making you smile, think, cry or all three with her verses. When, a few days later, I posted about Luna’s weekend off the rails, she wrote another one. The strain of being a Very Good Girl had clearly got too much for Luna to bear, so first of all she bisected the new hosepipe – which we’d had to buy because she chopped the previous one into three pieces. Then she decided as the weather was getting warmer, we needed open-toed slippers. Finally, she decided a bird who came into the house would be fun to play with, so she picked him up and took him down to the garden with her other toys. Unfortunately, although she was very gentle and never made a mark on the bird – she really did just want to play – it died of fright. It’s little body didn’t have a mark on it, but 25 kilos of Staffie cross charging round the garden was just too much for its heart to take. After giving the poor bird a blessing to speed him into the next life, I reported the weekend’s shenanigans, and quick as a flash, this came back:
Ok Luna, enuff’s enuff.
You’ve taken it all too far.
We’re working on the skateboard issue,
And even the chasing cars.
But, chewing a hose pipe?
Oh, come on. That really is not on.
Youve plenty toys to amuse yourself,
But no. My hose pipes gone.
Don’t get me started, on my footwear.
When the hospipe game was done,
You went and chewed on half a slipper,
Now I’ve only one!
But worst of all, was the poor wee bird,
Although, you only wished to play.
Unfortunately, he didn’t that memo get,
Now he won’t see another day.
R.I.P. poor wee bird.
Lunas energy, suddenly soared.
There’s nothing for it, Sandra, take a breath,
It’s back to the drawing board.
Yes, Luna’s a handful, but she’s also a beautiful, loving soul who has endured so much yet still holds love in her heart for everyone. She’s very much worth the effort to tame her hooligan streak. And when it all gets too much, I have friends like Carolynn to help me see the lighter side. I am truly blessed with my friends – and yes, with Luna too!
They say dogs are Man’s best friend, but this girl is an unashamed dog lover too. I’ll be honest, this post started out as a personal post about how my rescue dogs actually rescued my sanity during a bad situation. However, as the background information was fuelled by more and more memories, I decided to save that idea for another post and let the flow of happy memories carry me along.
As a child growing up, and as I raised my own family, there were always dogs – all different, but all special in their own ways. There was Pip, the Sealyham Terrier who was frozen in a snow drift in the bad winter of 1962/63 but lived to tell the tail – pun intended!
Pip was followed by Rinty, a German Shepherd pup who stood guard over my father as he recovered from having all his teeth out just a week after Rinty came to live with us. The only problem with that was, nobody else could get near Dad – not even Mum, with tea, sympathy and painkillers.
Then there was Sooty, the sneaky Miniature Poodle who hid round the back of our house until the postman and paper boy had made their deliveries. Many a morning we came downstairs to see the postman sat on the step, waiting for us to let him out. When our usual paper boy went on holiday, he neglected to tell his replacement that, as soon as the Express and Star hit the doormat, he needed to charge down the path and vault the gate, or risk Sooty sinking his teeth into places teeth really should not be allowed!
And who could forget George, the Jack Russell cross whose ‘finest hour’ was spotting a donkey tethered to a fence outside a country pub in Shropshire, peacefully watching the world go by? Unfortunately, what the pub landlord saw going by the window was his donkey, trailing a fence panel as he left the building, closely followed by George in full on terrier mode. Needless to say, we were not allowed inside to quench our thirst, despite the heat of the day.
George was a hard act to follow, but Patch, my second husband’s Border Collie, was another real character. I met him about half way through his impressive 17 year life span, and I was privileged to cradle him in my arms as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
Apart from that, my enduring memory of Patch was when, at the age of around 13, we took him for a run on Yelverton Common, on the edge of Dartmoor. It was a glorious day, and a number of families were enjoying picnics. One of the sheep was very interested in the food, and had wandered away from his mates, so Patch immediately went into full ‘One Man and His Dog’ mode. Crouching low, he gently but firmly herded the stray back to the flock. This from a dog who hadn’t been that close to a sheep since he left the farm where he was born at the age of 10 weeks!
I’ve been lucky enough to live with some fabulous canine characters, but little did I know the best was yet to come. Fast forward to 2014, and we were nicely settled in our lovely garden apartment on the Costa Blanca. However, one thing was missing as far as I was concerned – a canine companion.
My husband was adamant we were having no more dogs, as it tied us down, and we were both getting older, so there was a chance the dog would be left behind. Granted, he was 80 at the time, but at 62, I was confident I could see at least one more dog through to Rainbow Bridge Time before I joined the big reunion in the Great Dog Park in the Sky. As it turned out, I was right – there would be more than one more dog for me.
Paddy came to us on March 17, 2014. He was a Spanish dog, and he was going to have a Spanish name like Pedro, Pablo or Paco – until I noticed the date as I signed the paperwork. Then there were only two options, Paddy and Guinness. I didn’t even like Guinness, and I wasn’t having the neighbours thinking I was so obsessed with the black stuff I was shouting about it at all hours of the day and night.
My five years with Paddy taught me a lot about companionship, and the unconditional love dogs shower on their human guardians. Through him I learned about strength and courage, through his example. When he was killed defending me in March 2019, it felt like my own life was over too. And then along came Luna …
What can I say about Luna? She’s the first female dog I’ve ever lived with, and she’s also the most traumatised and feisty. She’s given me a lot of grey hairs, but she’s also given me love beyond measure. I’ve learned a lot from her, and hopefully she’s learned that she has found her forever home with me.
Over the years, my dogs have taught me a lot about love and life. They’ve given me so much more than they will ever know, and I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. This article is dedicated to all dogs, everywhere, with love and blessings.
There have been lots of laughs with Luna since she came into my life on 23 July 2019. Coincidentally, it was the 70th anniversary of my parent’s marriage, so I knew that she was going to be a permanent fixture in my life, even though I was only supposed to be fostering her short term. I was still grieving the loss of Paddy, my 5 year old rescue dog, who had been killed in front of me just 4 months previously. I really wasn’t ready to adopt again, but Luna needed urgent help.
She’d been found on the streets of Almoradi, near my home in Algorfa, covered in ticks, malnourished and carrying the scars of old injuries. She was a mess, and so was I. It felt like we were meant to be together, so I bit the bullet and adopted her,
In late October 2019, I had to come to England to sort out some personal stuff, and of course, Luna came with me. It seemed as though she was coping really well with all the changes she’d faced in such a short time, but in December, I injured my knee. I wasn’t able to give time to her training and exercise, and things got a bit out of hand.
My daughter, Elizabeth, stepped in to help, and being the Dog Whisperer she is, she soon brought Luna into line, As I was still out of action with my knee and persistent infections, Luna developed a really close bond with my friend Glenys, who is our host while we are in England.
Glenys finds this both touching and exasperating, as Luna seems to have a knack of being exactly where Glenys wants to be, a split second before she gets there. There have been a few near misses for both of them, and Luna was particularly persistent on Sunday. Eventually, Glenys had had enough, and she flounced into the lounge and announced:
I feel like I’m in a nursery rhyme – Mary Had a Little Lamb. Luna’s following me everywhere today!
We both burst out laughing, at the thought of Luna as a lamb, and then the creative right side of my brain kicked in, and I was inspired to write the poem below. There’s a bit of poetic licence in there – Luna is my dog, not Glenys’s, and she hasn’t dug a hole in the lawn. Yet! That was one of Paddy’s tricks though, and remembering it helped me with the rhyme pattern. Enjoy.
Glenys had a ruddy great dog, its fur was ever so black,
And everywhere that Glenys went, the dog was at her back
It followed her into the kitchen, when she was fixing lunch,
Hoping she’d drop some grated cheese, so the dog had a cheeky munch.
It followed her into the bedroom, and bounced all over the bed,
Leaving muddy footprints everywhere, and big scratches on Glenys’s head,
It followed her into the garden, when Glenys did the weeding,
It dug a great big hole in the lawn, and then it all needed re-seeding.
So if, like Glenys, you have a big dog, with fur that’s the colour of coal,
Teach it how to stay, without delay, so your lawn doesn’t get a great hole!