Our residents
The animals who live here.
Our canine residents live in the house with our family, which is the whole point. There are no kennel rows here, no runs and no waiting. They sleep on the furniture, they follow us from room to room, and they have twenty two acres of forest to wander with somebody always within calling distance.
Noah
He was booked for euthanasia. He is now impossible to ignore.
Noah came to a hospital with a broken pelvis and a deep tissue skin infection that had been left far too long, and the appointment on the books was to end his life. Somebody there picked up the phone and called us first.
We spoke with his family, who were doing the only thing they felt they could afford to do, and they agreed to release him into our care. He arrived sore and quiet and unsure about all of it.
His coat has grown back in and the skin underneath it is calm at last, which took months rather than weeks. He is fifteen now, spry, opinionated and entirely convinced that he is the center of this operation. He will tell you when dinner is late. He has decided which spot on the couch belongs to him and he defends it against animals four times his size. Every single day with him is the argument for why this place exists.
These two photos are the short version. The whole of Noah's transformation, month by month, is on our Facebook and Instagram, and it is worth the scroll.
Johann (Yohan)
Loved by two people, and asked to make a journey he could not make.
Nobody is entirely sure how old Johann is. Twelve at the very least, and quite possibly more. His owner died, and a member of that family took him in and loved him beautifully, which is the part of this story that does not get told often enough.
That person is now moving to the other side of the world, and he fully intended to take Johann with him. Then he sat down and worked out what it would actually mean for this particular dog. A sixteen hour flight, followed by two weeks in quarantine, for an old shepherd who runs high on anxiety at the best of times. He made the heartbreaking decision that it was more than he could ask of him.
So Johann came here instead. He is with us now, on twenty two acres, with people around him and nothing left to be frightened of. He is anxious, but he is enormously loving, and letting him go was an act of love by somebody who did not want to.
Looking for someone
Bear, LL Cool Fluffy, Jack and Peggy are on our memorial page.
Every animal we have cared for and lost has their story kept there, with the people who held them at the end.
Sponsor a resident
Medication, mobility support, diagnostics and food add up quickly for an animal in hospice care. Sponsoring a resident covers a real animal's real costs, and we will keep you updated on how they are doing for as long as they are with us.