Aileen & Rebecca Golsmith

My daughter Rebecca stumbled across Wolfie’s, who were on site at Dogfest a few years ago and fell in love with Dan. She decided to foster him, but of course before long we decided to adopt. He has 2 homes as he spends time in Chester with my daughter, and with us in Northumberland.

His story begins over in Thailand with a volunteer at a dog shelter. Someone had called and said there was an injured dog in their garden. He was just sitting quietly, no tail wag, didn't try to escape or anything, he looked sad and broken. He couldn't use his back legs, one was useless, the other wasn't much better but he could lean on it a little bit. He had skinned the top of his feet where he'd been dragging them – one was almost down to the bone. He had an infection in his eye and a few missing teeth.

He was moved to the shelter and started medication, but the shelter floor was concrete or gravel, and his feet couldn't heal. He was also incontinent.

Everyday the volunteers would pad his wounds and one of the ladies donated her water shoes to him because they had a tough rubber sole, which meant he could drag his feet with hurting them anymore. Slowly his wounds got better, and someone donated a pair of proper dog shoes so he could go for walks. He used a wheelchair, but he got around very well without it.

The shelter tiled one of the sections so that Dan could slide around easier and do less damage. The same volunteer, Debbie, started to take him swimming and discovered he had some use in one leg, when he swam, he used his leg, so she took him regularly, in the hope it would build up some muscle. The problem was that Dan hated swimming, and only swam if he was swimming to get back to solid ground.

Dan didn't always have his shoes put on for him, and his feet they became awfully infected and couldn't be cleared up which is why his legs were eventually removed. The Thai rescue decided he was too much hard work and started talking about putting Dan to sleep. Debbie couldn't stand by and let that happen, Dan wasn't sick, he was disabled. The search began for someone who would take a 1 eyed, 2-legged incontinent dog who eats his poo! Tall order. Wolfie’s Legacy stepped in agreeing to take Dan, but also offered to take another disabled dog. He joined Wolfie’s in August 2018 before attending Dogfest and... the rest is history.