Her first night in my house, I went to bed and opened the covers and invited her to come in. She looked at me in amazement, but didn’t hesitate and jumped right in and made sure every inch of her body was touching mine. I covered her up, put my arms around her and wept tears into her fur. Tears shed for all the nights she lay alone and cold. If I moved during the night, she would quickly move towards me, sometimes on top of me, just to make sure that she didn’t lose me during the night. I never knew dogs could spoon so well and I had a feeling that I was never going to get her out of my bed. Sure enough, a year later, as soon as she hears me brushing my teeth, she is under the covers waiting for me.

The first time I took Sarah for a walk and let her off leash, I nearly died laughing. Instead of running, she BOUNCED. Literally. She looked like a deer. She just kept bouncing over and over and people were looking at her and laughing. I laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks, as I had never seen a dog so happy in all my life,

Sarah was scared of so many things. She would shake all over if I brought out a broom. So we slept with the broom in “our” bed until she wasn’t scared of it. She was scared of my umbrella, so we slept with the umbrella. She was scared of the vacuum cleaner hose, so into the bed the hose went. She was scared of the mailman, well, she is still scared of the mail man. (Old and wrinkly, sorry)

She had no confidence at all, so I took her to agility to see if that would help. She was terrified of the equipment so I thought I would show her how to do it. There I was jumping over jumps, crawling through the dog tunnel (they really stink) and getting stuck in the hanging tire.(no one told me my butt was that big) I didn’t care that the other humans were rolling about the floor laughing at me, because Sarah pranced along beside me, so proud of my bravery, and she gave it a try. The humans weren’t laughing so much when a few weeks later Sarah won fastest in the class.

My children call Sarah the cling-on, because if you sit down, she is right there with you. She has snuggled with my children all day when they are sick, watched movies with them, and when they have a sleepover in the living room, she is right in the middle of them. She keeps their feet warm when they are sitting at the table doing their homework. She adores my children, and they adore her.