For the first eight years of my life, there were only two things I really really wanted. The first was a baby sister, and the second was a dog. Just before my eighth birthday, we adopted the ball of fluff above- Tinks, who was one at the time. Then, before I was nine, my mum became pregnant with my sister. My two biggest dreams, complete. Being eight was great.
However, Tinks had a mysterious past. All we knew that she had been found roaming the streets of Cardiff, and was subsequently taken to Bath Dogs Home, which is where we adopted her from. At first, she was quite nervy- especially around bottles, which made us think she may have been threatened or even hit with one- and was impossible to let off the lead. She would go running off at any opportunity; we had to be careful even opening the front doors, as she was very good at dodging through and running away. To make things worse, we live near a woman who used to work for Cats Protection League, and who has adopted over twenty cats, who all live in the house. Tinks was very interested in cats, and her greatest delight was running up the road to see if she could catch any. As you can probably guess, the neighbours weren't happy about this, even though we did all we could to stop Tinks from escaping. Though she didn't escape that many times, the neighbours decided they had to call the dog warden. Thankfully, all they did was caution us.
However, by summer 2010, my mum had had enough. She said that life with Tinks was too stressful, and it was unfair- though we walked her regularly and as far as possible, she couldn't go off the lead, and she lived in constant anticipation of reaching the cats. It was time for us to take Tinks back to the dogs home, in hopes that she'd be rehomed in a better situation.
I was heart-broken. She was my dream come true. Okay, so she was hard work and a lot of trouble- but, when we first got her, I'd been like that, too (I was a really awful, badly behaved child until around 9 or 10). The day we took her back to the dogs home is one of my worst memories.
From what we know, she was rehomed quickly. Unfortunately, we have no idea to what circumstances, or how she's doing now. I can only hope that she's doing better.
Since then, we've got another dog- Ginny- who we got from a puppy so that she'd be more loyal and better behaved, which has worked. I love Ginny to bits, and she's hugely important. But no one, ever, will replace Tinks.