Alfie’s Story

Both my partner and I were working from home during the 2020 lockdowns, and this continued well into the new year. We were careful, and hadn’t been sick ourselves, but we lost people who were dear to us, and it taught us that life was short. For my partner, this meant doing something he’d always wanted to, but had been postponing because of work commitments – he wanted to adopt a dog.

I… wasn’t so keen. I wasn’t scared of dogs, I just knew it would be a massive commitment, and pre-pandemic I’d had a career which basically prohibited me from making such a commitment. It could also destroy the house, and the food smelt funny, it would shed hair everywhere, and then there was the poop!

I knew that this was going to happen, and there was very little I could do to stop it, and I wanted to support my partner in his goal. For his part, my partner was very particular about the dogs he applied for – not too big, not too fluffy, and as this was our first dog, he didn’t apply for any which had known special medical needs as it wouldn’t have been fair to the dog, let alone us.

One day, he started tidying the house, moving things around. We were going to have a house check, via Zoom of course, to see if our house would make a suitable home. With the exception of needing to “dog proof” the railings around our garden decking (there’s a 2m drop to the lawn) and the garden gate, we passed. The next day I went to the local hardware store and bought some chicken wire to plug up any doggy sized gaps.

I had seen some photos of a smallish tan and white dog, which my partner had sent me, he looked like a scamp. Very cute, but liable to steal your socks if you left them out. We spoke to his current family on Zoom. They had adopted Alfie a couple of months earlier, they’d wanted a second dog… but it turned out the incumbent dog didn’t want a friend living in the same house, there had been a fight, there had been a trip to A&E, and although this dog hadn’t been at fault and hadn’t bit the owner, it was him who would have to move on.

The next day my partner took a day off work and drove for an hour and a half to meet Alfie, and wouldn’t stop talking about this amazing pup he’d met, and I agreed to meet up with the family and Alfie for a walk at the weekend.

We met a bit closer to home, and my partner left me and Alfie, and Alfie’s care giver to get to know each other. Alfie was curious, sniffing everywhere he could get his nose too, he took a treat off me (something he hadn’t done for my partner on their initial meeting), and I heard more of his story.

Alfie, and 4 of his siblings had been found at the side of the motorway in Romania. No mum in sight, no clue as to how they got there. They were picked up by a volunteer for Second Chance Golden Retriever Rescue, who despite being a small organization, never turn a dog away. They were tiny, all 5 of them were picked up and put in the passenger foot well of the volunteers car and taken to a safe place, and then to the vet for a check up. They were all healthy pups, and they were looked after by the organization while they grew, and got ready to find their forever homes in the UK. When they were old enough, they traveled to the kennels in Newport, Wales and they were all adopted.

The puppies were named Buzz, Jellybean, Lottie, Tess and Jess. There seems to have been a mix up along the way, which is kind of understandable with so many dogs around. “Lottie” was named and recorded on the pet passport as a girl, but when Lottie came to be adopted, they changed her name to Alfie as she was very much found to be a he! I have a feeling that one of the females in the litter might have a similar mistake in her passport.

All the other pups seemed to find their forever homes quickly, and Alfie was adopted too. But, this was September 2020, and the couple who had adopted him where paramedics, and through no fault of their own found that they didn’t have enough time to look after him, as they had literally thousands of lives to save, so turned to the rescue organization to help find a new home for him, which is how he’d ended up in the current home, with the grumpy dog.

After finding all this out, even though I still wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted a dog, I knew that I had to offer Alfie a home, and that it would be forever and I would do whatever it took to make it a happy one.

That was the Saturday, he came to live with us on Wednesday.

He was quiet to begin with, anxious and not really sure what was happening. Fireworks didn’t help, but he seemed to like the garden (specifically digging up the flowerbed and veg patches!) He was very attached to my partner to begin with and refused point blank to go for walks with me. This eventually resulted in me dragging him around the block. He was happy in my company, but I didn’t have the same bond with him when it came to walks or being left alone in the house with me.

So, I worked at it. I tried watching YouTube videos on how to train your dog. But Alfie just barked at the TV and got stressed out thinking that there was another dog in the house that he didn’t know. So I found an app with short videos and instructions on how to train your dog. We carried on working. My partner and I had given him a lot of slack, he was young an excitable, and he’d been through a lot. He was a pretty good boy, and it probably wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand “Sit!”

Then we had a visitor, a friend popped to the house to drop something off. Alfie raced towards him barking hello all the way! “Sit!” our friend commanded. And Alfie skidded to a halt… and sat. Then, realizing he’d given the game away, lifted his paw and sheepishly wagged his tail at us.

It actually turned out he knew quite a lot! Sit, (lay) down, off, up, paw, high five. Obviously, he just knew that he’d get more treats if we thought he needed the practice! The things he really needed to master were his recall, chasing bikes, and barking at the doorbell… and baths.

Alfie hates water, we discovered this when we tried to give him a bath with in the first few weeks, the noise he was making, you’d think we were trying to drown him. I was upset, maybe somebody had tried to drown them, and then not having the “courage” to do so, left them all at the side of the road! He’s getting used to it though, and even bounded across a shallow steam for a treat a couple of times, but when he gets really stinky, we wash him with a cloth and a bucket of warm water in the garden. He’s not a fan, but looks really pleased with himself after he’s shaken himself off. He also knows there’s cheesy biscuits when we’re all done. We haven’t ventured to a groomer with him, I don’t know who’d be more traumatized, him or them.

He’s now been with us for eight months, and the bond between us is now strong. He comes back when I call him if he’s playing off lead in the park, although there’s still some way to go with chasing bikes and barking at the doorbell. He has lots of friends up at the park behind our house, and is still the curious playful dog I met on that Saturday in January. Hi best friend is a blue Labradoodle called Willow, she came round for a visit one afternoon, and the pair were so excited it took a few hours for them both to calm down after she left. He’s visited the dogs at my partners parents house, which is a couple of hours dive away, and even stayed overnight, you wouldn’t even have thought it wasn’t his house too, he’s so chilled out about going to new places and meeting new people.

That said, he doesn’t like it when my partner is out all day. I’m back in the office now, but will work from home if the other half needs to go on site, or is sailing, and he gets grumpy and sulky about it. He’ll also tell us off if we spent too long at the shops and have left him home alone for a while. As well as friends, he has an enemy! There is a collie dog who lives next to the path into the woods, and there is always a lot of barking and growling at each other as we walk past. I imagine the poor collie is sick of having his doorstep naps interrupted by the entire local dog population walking past his house to get to the woodland, and gets grumpy with all of them!

When we’re working he will lay on a cushion under the desk, or if he’s in a really cozy mood, he’ll steal the bean bag and snooze away behind us, panting and feet kicking the air as he chases whatever it is dog chase in their dreams, while we tap away at the keyboard, or join zoom meetings – both my partners and my colleagues have all had Alfie pop his face over the desk to see what’s going on and if he can get a treat during a Zoom call, and it really brightens mood of the meeting.

He’ll let us know the post man has been, although he’s not yet at the stage when he’ll bring the post to us in one piece. He’ll remind us to take a break, come and play or take a walk around the block when we’ve been sat for too long, and he is excellent at security patrols around the garden making sure the local squirrel population don’t get to forage in the veg patch - which he no longer digs up! Very occasionally, he’ll bring the socks from the drying rack back inside for me, and not destroy them. Despite everything he’s been through, he is an excellent wellbeing monitor, and is always on hand for a face lick when the going gets tough and I’ve run out of coffee.

Alfie has completely changed my view on dog ownership, to the point where we’re considering adopting a second dog in the new year. We know he gets bored with us sitting at the desk all day, and we know he wants more play time and more walkies. He’s certainly not neglected, but we think finding him a friend he can chill with while we do our thing will make our family complete. In the mean time, I’m nominating Alfie as my “EmPAWee of the Month”.