Mandy's Story

Mandy was a small and gentle girl with so much love to give. Mandy never raced and was adopted by a gentleman from Chesterford, where she was very much loved and cared for. She mostly enjoyed her trips to the dog park with her gentleman companion, he would walk her from his buggy to the playing field where she was let loose to play with all the other dogs. It was great to see her running around with her other dog companions and feeling very much loved and happy with her life.  

Sadly, he became ill, went into hospital and began treatment in the ward. It meant that his neighbours took care of Mandy, but they couldn't take her in their own home due to personal reasons, meaning Mandy was left in her house on her own. The neighbours would feed her and walk her each day and stay with her for company. However, they would leave her to go back home, meaning Mandy became quite stressed and trashed her home in frustration and worry.  

The neighbours decided to take her to Romford Retired Greyhounds as they couldn't cope with Mandy's sorrow. Unfortunately, this didn't make much difference; she was so traumatised she refused to eat anything at all. The team at the kennels were very worried about Mandy's wellbeing and stayed with her to help keep her calm. Once they left, Mandy would break out the kennels just to get some human interaction and love. Weeks went by and the kennel staff received the devastating news that her owner had passed away. They took Mandy to the funeral out of respect so she could say goodbye to her best friend one final time.  

Mandy stayed in the care of Romford Retired Greyhounds and began to get even worse with her sadness, so they decided to do an urgent appeal on Facebook to try and get her a home as soon as possible. Sarah contacted Katie and explained she worked from home and felt she could give Mandy a suitable home. They were ecstatic that someone had come forward and brought Mandy up to Sarah. She arrived with lots of her belongings from her previous home and bags of all kinds of expensive food to entice her to eat. That night Mandy found the bed and settled in well, snoozing and feeling a lot happier from the get-go. Sarah managed to get her to eat half of her supper that night. The morning came and Mandy was excited to eat her breakfast and scoffed the whole bowl down - result!  

However, Mandy's separation anxiety was still quite bad and Sarah couldn't even leave the house to put the bins out without Mandy crying and stressing. The team at Romford Retired Greyhounds offered support and together they managed to get Mandy to focus on chewing a bone stuffed with sausages if Sarah had to nip to the local shop. If it was longer than a few minutes, Sarah had to take Mandy with her due to the stress it caused her while being left alone.  

During the Covid lockdown, Sarah managed to give Mandy a bone and go to sit in her car for longer periods at a time, gradually making it to two hours that Mandy could be left alone. Any more time than that, Sarah would take her to her neighbour's house with their Greyhound, Brian, or to her friends with a Dachshund.

Other than her separation anxiety, Mandy settled well into Sarah's home and enjoyed her walks to the park and zoomies in enclosed fields! Remembering the good old days with her best friend, one day she passed a man in a buggy and was so happy she thought it was her old pal. It seems as if she never forgot him at all.  

Unfortunately, Sarah only got to enjoy Mandy's company for a few years as at the age of ten Mandy sadly passed away in her sleep from a seizure. She could finally be reunited with her best friend. 

 Thank You for sharing this lovely story, Sarah. It's beautiful and we're glad Mandy got her forever home in the end.