Leah Newell

BEAUTIFUL LEAH SLIPPED PEACEFULLY AWAY (20.7.2020)

Karen wrote: “I, unfortunately, write with a very heavy heart, to advise that we lost our beautiful Leah in July (20 July), c. 11.5 years old. We are absolutely heartbroken and I have not been able to bring myself to write to let you know before now.

She started to become unwell in late May and then went downhill very quickly, from starting to lose weight and with the quick onset of arthritis. After a number of blood tests (biochemistry and haematology) which all came back fine, she had a chest x-ray and abdomen scan which unfortunately showed she had tumours. One on her liver, one on her spleen and a nodule on her right lung.

The vet said they could do further investigations (open her up to determine exactly what the tumours were) and give her chemo etc. but following really good discussions with them, we concluded that that wouldn’t be fair to Leah, as she wouldn’t have a good quality of life, and it would be prolonging her life for our benefit.

We already had a two-week holiday booked for July, in Devon, which we’d booked back in 2019, so the vet suggested we still go on it with Leah. They gave us Metacam for her arthritis and gave us lots of advice on what to do/not to do for/with her, and so we managed to go just as lockdown#1 ended and holidays were allowed. We bought a doggy buggy the week before we went so that we could get out and about with her in her favourite places.

We had a wonderful first week with her, although she still wasn’t eating well, you could tell she was enthusiastic about the holiday and the beach. Sadly, she took a horrible turn for the worse on the middle weekend and we just knew we had to get her home and make the heart-breaking decision. We got home with her on Sunday 19 July and slept overnight on the floor of the living room with her. I then phoned the vets first thing on Monday 20 July and they were able to book us in for that afternoon. Sadly, because of Covid, they couldn’t come to our house/garden, so we had to take her to the vets, but thankfully they have a lovely long garden, with a very quiet and peaceful area under some trees, away from the practice. This is where we had to say goodbye to our beautiful girl. We kissed her, hugged her and talked to her to the very end. It was very peaceful, she needed to sleep, and as devastated as we were/are, I felt peace knowing she was at peace.

We brought her home and buried her in our garden. I talk to her every day.

I just cannot believe we’ve had 5 months (this weekend) without her already. I don’t know where the time has gone.

She was our everything and we feel incredibly lost without her. Thankfully, we have such wonderful memories of our 10.5 years with her, with thousands of amazing photos.

Christmas is going to be very strange without Leah, especially as we’ve decided, mutually with all our family, not to mix due to health reasons with older relatives, and so this will be our first Christmas alone! She adored the social side of Christmas, but also the present opening. She got very excited with the presents, and was very good at opening hers, and helping others with theirs! 

Thank you for your kind words regarding giving Leah such a fantastic life and dignified, peaceful end. This really means a lot to us. WE were the lucky ones to have Leah in our life, and though we desperately didn’t want to say goodbye, we knew (as they say you will) it was the right time for her. We could not let her suffer.

I’m writing this with tears streaming down my face because putting it all in writing hits home again.

I attach some final photos of our beloved girl.

All best wishes

Karen and Les”.

PS. “Just to let you know, Les is Manager of a Sports Centre, and each January they set a ‘January Challenge’ with their staff, and members, to challenge themselves physically. Last January his team did a joint Ironman Challenge. This coming January, the team are all setting their own individual challenges, all for charity, with money raised to be split equally across their chosen charities. Les has chosen IRR in memory of Leah. He plans to run an average of 10 miles per day, for the whole month, and average less than 7 minutes per mile. Les is a competitive runner, however, he usually runs on average 45 miles per week. He’s often wanted to increase his mileage over the winter months but has never managed to due to either injury or lack of motivation. Fingers crossed there will be no injuries as his motivation for this will certainly be our lovely Leah”.

EARLY DAYS

Leah, a Labrador Cross, was approximately 10mths old when she came into IRR care. She was spotted in the Pound by a lady who was desperate to adopt her so we brought her over to the UK having had her spayed in Ireland.

Sadly, her prospective adopter was then unable to rehome her as one of her dogs had become extremely poorly and the time was simply not right any more.

She has a lovely temperament and is great with other dogs, good with children and is even OK with cats. Leah was in foster with Lucy and John in the Midlands over Christmas. Read all about her on her own doggy blog. She was then due to be going to her new home so she was moved to Simon instead so she could be fully child tested.

FIRST DAY AT SIMONS

Simon says, “Leah has settled in very well and made friends with everyone and is a typical energetic puppy. The good news is that she’s really good with the children and the only downside is that she’s full of bounce so there’s a remote possibility she might accidentally knock a young child over. She’s already had a good play with Freddie but Candy and Buddy are still a wee bit unsure of her although they all get on great, see the photo of Julie with the four dogs – left to right is Leah, Candy, Buddy and Freddie……can you spot little Cady?

“I’ve got to say she eats like a horse, even though we gave her extra food she still finished off the kibble that both Freddie and Candy had left and then she found the carrots and started nibbling one of those.” 

UPDATE 4.01.10

Having been successfully child tested at Simon’s, Leah has now made one more move from the Midlands to Buckinghamshire to be fostered for a few days before meeting her new forever parents.

FROM LUCY IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

“Just to let you know that Leah has settled in fine, she’s an absolute sweetheart. Great with the kids and she and Rufus have made friends – he’s following her around like a lovestruck pup and she’s just telling him off when she’s had enough!”

“She’s eaten well and doesn’t seem phased by anything, and she settled down quite quickly last night and slept through, no accidents.”

LEAH HAVING FUN AT LUCY’S

The weather is preventing Leah from meeting her new Mum & Dad but Lucy says “No worries with Leah staying here longer, I’m keen to see her go to a lovely new home, but we’re enjoying her company! We’ve still got lots of snow here but it is just possible to travel today.”

“Leah is very excited about meeting her new folks and has sent them slobbery kisses. This is her with our dog, Rufus. They have been having loads of fun racing around in the snow together”.

FIRST REPORT FROM LEAH’S FOREVER HOME

Karen says “Due to the current and forthcoming snow we’d made the decision that if all went well with today’s visit, we’d bring Leah home today and I’m pleased to say the meeting went very well and Les and I fell in love with Leah straight away.”

“She’s adorable and very affectionate and is already settling in well. She was confident entering the house; wanting to look everywhere, she polished her dinner off and then fell into a deep sleep. We had a lovely walk earlier and I’ve just taken her out for a nightime toilet walk before bed. We’re yet to find out how she settles overnight.”

“Many thanks to Lucy and Graeme for their hospitality today and we hope Grace wasn’t too upset after Leah left.”

LEAH IN HER NEW HOME

Karen says “Here are some pictures taken by a friend, of Leah and Becks their Guide Dog puppy (in training) having fun in their garden.

We still can’t believe how wonderful Leah is, she’s beautiful in every way and we’re thoroughly enjoying having her as part of our family.”

UPDATE FEB 2010

Leah settled into the fabric crate Lucy and Graeme kindly loaned us for bedtime the first few nights but it soon became apparent she was getting stressed in it when we left her and one evening we had to go back to her as we could tell from the noise she was making that something wasn’t right, she’d tipped herself over in it! We bought her a fleece lined bed and she absolutely loves it, no issues at all at bedtime, sleeps through the night and she quickly taught herself that she goes to her bed when we’re having our dinner!

Leah has settled in amazingly; she takes everything in her stride and is an absolute joy 🙂 We had two accidents, both in her first week, other than that she tells us when she needs to go out. She goes to work with Les most days; she loves all the fuss she gets from Les’ colleagues and plays in the sports centre when no one else is around; if Les is on a late shift he’s at home with her. When she is left it’s only for a few hours, we leave the radio on and she either plays with her toys or has a nap. We can’t remember a time when she wasn’t here she’s such a big part of our family now.

Everyone who meets Leah has fallen head over heels in love with her which is expected as she’s a darling.

Leah loves being brushed which is therapeutic for both of us.

She’s great around other dogs, she just wants to play, which of course not all dogs want to do. She’s slowly starting to understand that she can’t jump on them all the time! She absolutely loves birds, she’ll sit for ages watching them in the garden on our feeder, absolutely mesmerised which mesmerises me!!

She hasn’t once attempted to go upstairs and we knew we didn’t want to encourage her to do this, so this is great. She’ll just sit at the bottom of the stairs and patiently wait for us to come back down.

Though she walks nicely on the lead I was concerned that when she does pull she makes herself rasp, so we bought her a harness and it’s made all the difference, a better walking experience for all of us.

We plan to take Leah to training classes but are just deciding which one at the moment; as Pauline suggested we will go along the first time without Leah to make our decision.

The only ‘problem’ we’re encountering is Leah suffers with severe car sickness and now refuses to get into the car. We don’t know if this is car sickness plain and simple or psychological as we don’t know her history. We’ve pondered whether it may be because to her going in the car means moving home again, we just don’t know, however everyone has said to persevere which is what we intend to do. Pauline has kindly given us suggestions and the names of some herbal essences that we will try.

The picture above is of our nephew Oscar (4 1/2yrs) meeting Leah for the first time; he’s a bit nervous of dogs but he absolutely loved Leah.