Destiny, Dexter and Chanel

Over the years as a Haven volunteer, my own pack of dogs unintentionally grew to three.

November 4, 2022

Destiny made it very clear that she had chosen me – jumping all of the ‘jump proof’ fences to follow me around when I volunteered and refusing to even go for a walk with a potential new family when they came to adopt her. When I bought a house, I had to take her home.

Chanel had extensive medical issues and ultimately became a foster fail when I took her home to recover from a surgery and, after complications in her recovery, couldn’t return her after 2 months at home.

Dexter just came home for a couple nights after having a rough day at the Haven. Due to significant behavioural issues, he couldn’t safely be rehomed to the general public so spent a long time waiting for someone that knew him to take him home. I took him on regular outings to give him a break from Haven life and he started refusing to get out my car when I took him back. I was finally able to take him home full time when I was made redundant from my FIFO job.

The amount of love and joy that these very unique dogs brought into my life is overwhelming, yet if they had been surrendered to a shelter without the Haven’s strong ‘no-kill’ policy, they would have been unlikely to survive due to their medical and behavioural issues. I will be forever grateful to the Haven, and Sylvia and Claudine in particular, for taking such a strong stance to protect the dogs that others would have given up on.