Callie, Day 7

On Monday 10th August, we drove from North Devon to Shropshire with our 10-year-old daughter and our 4-year-old flat-coat retriever male dog to meet a 2-year-old female rescue lurcher called Callie in kennels. 

I'd made up my mind a few months ago that rescuing some kind of greyhound, whippet or lurcher would be a good thing to do, and when I saw Callie I thought she looked like a dog we could provide a home for. 

It's a family of dogs that often gets mistreated and/or overlooked and black dogs have trouble getting adopted because ... well ... I don't know, but I felt very strongly that we were capable of helping to counteract some of the bad behaviours of our fellow human beings. 

It was crazy to go all that way but Richard is well aware of my "I've made up my mind" idiosyncrasy and supported my venture. 

When we first met Callie my initial reactions were fear and doubt. She snapped and snarled at our dog, Dylan, and reminded me rather too much of an aggressive doberman but once off the lead she relaxed and impressed us with her speedy legs and playful character. 

We watched her interact with our dog and our daughter, we asked to see how she behaved in the back of our car shut in with all of us and and other dog, and we asked a few questions about her history. Within half an hour we had warmed to her and made the enormous decision to take her home with us. 

The journey home was long and stressful. (Remind me never to go near the M6 again...) but we got home safely and introduced Callie to her new home and had time for a play in the garden in daylight. 

She slept in the same room as Dylan overnight and we didn't hear a peep out of either of them. Within 24 hours she had charmed her way into all our hearts, made it clear she was too precious to lie on the floor and had formed an attachment with us so quickly that we felt safe enough to take her for a run on the beach off the lead. 

One week on she had settled into our lives and our routines and seemed to know we weren't going to let her down.