Amazing Grace.

What is the value of a dog?

To some they are invisible and unloved

not seen and heard

their lives without being kissed and hugged

nothing gained, nothing learned.

To others they are a means to an end

they fulfil a role

until they are to the Rainbow Bridge sent.

Often discarded in a black bag, no name on the ground where they dug the hole,

no second thought lent.

Then we have the souls that find their person

they become a part of who we are.

There is no rhyme or reason

for this bonding and love that stretches so far.

It envelopes your soul and lingers on

long after one of the partners are gone.

I stretch my hand to find a face

but there is just nothingess left in the space.

I see you out the corner of my eye

and I quickly turn to say hi

but all I see

is an emptiness with no Gracy nearby.

If I have a wish it would be

that every person finds a special bond like Grace and me.

I have so many wonderful memories of great times

inspiring me and bringing fond memories to mind.

What a life she had!

And though sometimes I am a little sad

I know she will be waiting there for me

When I get to walk that bridge as life ceases to be.

Until then I treasure these memories

and rejoice in the day

That Grace came our way

A dog so special she touched many souls

and brought so much love and kindness for us to have and to hold.

Grace Wilde loved in a Wilde way – 10 Feb 2014 - 22 Aug 2022

It has taken me a long time to write this piece. I have been saving it for an occasion and as February is the month that I celebrate the adoption of this special dog as well as the anniversary of 50 Shades of Spay, I can’t think of a better reason to do this post.

Where do I start?

I start at the very beginning when I first met this dog. January 2014 and our family have just returned from a trip to Disney World in Florida USA. I was still serving on the SPCA committee and I couldn’t wait to fetch my dogs, as they were all boarding at the SPCA during the holidays. I arrived and I was immediately swept up in the excitement. The staff were all wanting to show me their latest rescue which was housed in the kennel nearest to the office. The staff enthusiasm got to me as well and I marvelled in the moment. December usually brought a lot of tears, unhappiness and frustration to the fore with the fact that people would discard their pets in favour of taking a holiday and leaving the SPCA to pick up the pieces. The festive season wasn’t so festive at the SPCA. Humans are cruel and have no qualms about trading their old dogs for puppies with the cycle continuing every year. The kennels were filled with hopeful faces and good homes were few and far between.

I remember walking to the kennel wondering what would greet me and I fist laid eyes on a bag of bones lying on a blanket in the back of the kennel. I couldn’t really see what breed the dog was until she raised her head. That’s when I first laid eyes on Grace and the moment feels like yesterday. She lifted her head, gave us a glance, her long tail moving a little and her eyes locking with mine. This dog looked like a greyhound but she had a bit of a scraggly coat. I had never seen a dog like that before and I was mesmerised.

Her story wasn’t uncommon. She had been found by the Carey family living out in the plot area adjacent to Three Rivers East on the 2 January 2014. She had walked up the driveway of their property and basically crumbled in a heap at the back door. Without knowing it she had chosen the best house ever to ask for help. Barbara, who also groomed all the strays for the SPCA, immediately brought the dog in. She had many dogs of her own and understandably she was concerned for their welfare so she called the SPCA. Grace was collected later that day and brought to the kennels. Her condition was so bad that the Inspectors debated whether she would be better off being put to sleep. Pressure sores from sleeping on a hard ground, an emaciated body and a broken soul stared back at them. There must have been something that made them decide to try and save her. I think it was a combination of the fact that they had been subjected to a gruelling and inhumane festive period with death and carnage at an all time high but also something of those doe like eyes that looked at them with so much trust that made the decision an easy one..

Try we did. Grace, as we had named her because she brought grace to our lives, was far from being out of the woods. Her body was so emaciated that she hardly had the strength to stand up on her own. She was a mature, fully grown Greyhound but weighing in under 20kg. There was literally skin covering bone. We immediately put a plea for help out to the public. We were in need of chicken and rice cooked and packed in small bags so we could feed her meals throughout the day. It didn’t take long for the chicken and rice to start rolling in, Grace had captured the publics eye as well. Then we established a feeding programme with the help of our vet. Grace was allowed company so we told the public to come visit. It seems like she always had somebody sitting on her blanket next to her in her kennel and although she was very weak she loved the company.

Every morning early the staff would rush to her kennel to see if she had made it through the night. The elation was palatable when she would lift her head and wiggle her tail, cries of delight would fill the air. You have to give it to these people, they care. Not just superficially so, no with everything in their being. Grace made it because they cared.The public got involved and brought homeopathic remedies, toys, blankets and so much food we had to appeal for a deep freeze. Grace got her own deep freeze and her food was never late despite the fact that the staff still had to attend to all the calls and duties that came their way. They made it work because they wanted to see a happy ever after for this dog that actually represented every forgotten stray that didn’t make it. Grace became the symbol of hope at our SPCA.

She improved daily. At first she started standing up when she saw us, then she wanted to go for walks and her appetite just increased. The vet visits were highlights as she got a glowing report every time. The staff were thriving on her success. I had fallen in love with this beautiful, kind dog. Despite all her problems and the ill treatment she had had at the hand of her previous owners she was kind and gentle. If this dog was human she would be everything Jesus wants us to be.

Towards the end of January 2014 I had decided to resign from the SPCA. I had served there for 7 years and I felt my time had come to an end. You do what you can with what you have and then you let somebody else do better. That’s how life works. I stayed on for the month of February to tie up all the loose ends but I knew that as from March I would no longer be involved in the SPCA. It was my baby and it helped me through a very difficult time in my life but I wanted to persue other avenues.

My greatest worry was Grace. She had come along with leaps and bounds and we were starting to look for a more permanent solution for her. We had advertised her hoping we would find her forever home but everything that came her way was wasn’t what we envisaged for her. Time was running out and I was in a pickle.

One morning I was standing in my kitchen at home with my husband whilst he was making the morning coffee. We were talking about me leaving the SPCA and inevitably the conversation came round to Grace. “What am I going to do with her?” I said.

I distinctly remember him looking up from his coffee task and saying:” Why don’t you bring her home?” This from a man that had put his size 11 foot down not too long ago and said:” NO MORE ANIMALS”. When he gets like that we pay attention. The man is quiet and restrained but there is an underlying current of DFWM ( Don’t Fuck With Me) in him.Despite his adamant stance he took pity on me and my love for this dog and decided she could come home. I don’t think I had ever gotten dressed and made my way to the SPCA so quickly. The adoption forms were completed and I remember paying R450 for her spay. The home check was done and Grace was booked to go for her big snip. We knew she had had quite a few litters of pups in her life as her body showed the signs but I told her she would never have to go through that again in her lifetime.

Grace went for her spay and there we learnt that Greyhounds don’t take well to anaesthetic. We nearly lost her that day. The vet told us that he had battled to keep her alive and for the next few days she was very weak but she had a higher duty to fulfil and she was spared.

The day I brought her home is etched in my mind. I had prepped my family that we were now going to be responsible for the well being of a greyhound. That meant we would have to go for long walks and we would have to keep her busy. Typical Yvette style, balls to the walls and all that. The introduction to home life went well. All my dogs came and said hello and then waltzed off to their respective couch of choice. They we’re so used to me bringing dogs home they didn’t even lift an ear. Grace was petrified. She walked into the house like she was walking on stilts. I had her on a lead and she looked and smelt everything. I knew she had lived a life sleeping outside and she had been used for breeding and hunting. If it wasn’t for that she would have been dead a long time ago. Although so badly treated she had value and her previous owner made sure he got the maximum out of her without any thought for her well being. I knew it would take a long time for her to acclimatise and become accustomed to living in a house with a family. We took it one day at a time, one foot in front of the other.

Grace was a tall, thin dog but my very first time of sitting on the loo and having her come face to face with me told me exactly how big she was. Oh my word! there was congestion in the bathroom already but Grace added a traffic jam. I just laughed and laughed.

My pep talk about being a responsible owner and taking my Greyhound for long extended walks came to a crashing halt when Grace found the magic of a couch. It really took an almighty effort to get her to move from her favourite position. I finally gave up.Let the dog be…The rest of the family let out a sigh of relief.

Looking at Grace I knew that the problem of over population of animals was not going to end, my leaving the SPCA was not going to help the animals in the community and knowing this just made me more resolute todo something from my side.I had just turned 50 and I also wanted to do something to commemorate my 50th swing around the sun.. That’s when the idea of 50 Shades of Spay came to fruition. I am good at baking and I put that to work. At that stage the movie 50 Shades of Grey was a box office hit so I decided a play on words would do. I contacted my vet asking him for rescue rates when sterilising. Grace was adopted just before Valentine’s Day and 50 Shades of Spay was born on the 3 March 2014.

Grace continued to amaze us. She was the laziest dog we had ever had. She went to be every night at 7 pm expecting to be tucked in and would only rise the next day at 7. She loved her food, her mom and sleeping. She got anxious when the weather was bad, car rides were not her thing and the other dogs were not allowed near her bed when she went to sleep. Those were the only things that bothered her.

She was so big she could make things disappear off the kitchen counter with an angelic face belying her stealth modes. At first I thought I had misplaced the food looking high and low. No trace was left behind. Then one day I caught her in the act. The long snout could reach in places that I had thought would be safe. That’s when Operation Safeguarding against Grace started. Cakes baked for customers would suddenly have a bite out of them and I would have to start afresh. This drove me balmy. I moaned and groaned and threatened to take her back to the SPCA whilst she watched me with an angelic expression on her face belying her theft. One of Briony’s prized possessions was a solid chocolate frog that she had brought back from Universal Studios in Florida. It was a Harry Potter memento and stood on her dressing table proudly announcing to all and sunder that she had been to the world of magic. Grace took one look at it and stored the location in her brain. Her first port of call when we had left the house was to pay that frog a visit. We found the evidence in Graces poop littering the grass with foil flecks for days to come. Grace had a tin stomach and never got sick from eating people food so the chocolate did nothing to her. Needless to say there was a lot of drama in our house for a long time with Briony lamenting the loss of her prized frog.I told her she should have kissed it, maybe it would have turned into a prince and all that and would not have been devoured by a hound.By now Grace was weighing 44 kg.Borderline podgy for a Greyhound.

She had been a Wilde family member for a few months when I started noticing weird bumps on her body, especially her ears. I made an appointment with a specialist vet and after extensive testing they came too the conclusion that it was a form of TB that she had contracted from sleeping on the hard ground. The vet said that in all his years of practice he had never come across this before. Grace really had had a very hard life until she stumbled up the road to the Careys house. She must have had many litters hence her impatience with small dogs, she must have been incarcerated in a very small area sleeping on the hard ground and she had led the life of a hunting dog only seeing freedom over a weekend when she had to hunt for her owner. The life expectancy of a hunting dog is not long. They either starve to death or get injured. Seeing a vet wouldn’t even come in to the equasion. Grace went on an extensive treatment plan and it took months to heal. Going to the vet was not bad, travelling with a singing greyhound in the car was the problem. She sang the story of her people all the way to the vet and back. It was hell whenever we had to go in the car.

I had Grace for about two months when I was invited to a greyhound gathering in Johannesburg. It was an early morning walk and although I was rather afraid of loosing my beautiful dog I made the early morning trek. To ensure that she would not get lost I had her microchipped, she had a collar with an identifying tag on and a body brace with another tag on. I was ready. We got to the park and it was greyhounds as far as the eye could see. Thats when I learnt another thing about these beautiful dogs, they were as social as you would get. There was no aggression just friendly greetings everywhere. The park was huge but totally enclosed and we all set off at a brisk pace. Most parents let their hounds go off leash but I was clinging to Grace. What if she didn’t return to me? I wasn’t going to take the chance but the other owners had plans for me. They convinced me to let her go and with a heavy heart I unclipped her. Such joy, grace, fluent movement I had seldom seen. She ran and ran and ran and I could feel panic taking over. A lady said to me just call her and watch which I did. To my utter joy and surprise she stopped, looked back and immediately ran back to me. Thats all the confirmation that I needed. She saw me as her mom and she was not going to let go.Neither was I. That day I learned that Grace was a Lurcher not a Greyhound. Lurchers are crossbred dogs mixing a greyhound and a terrier type dog. Thats where she got her long coat from. Lurcher also comes from the verb lurch a variant form of lurk which means steal. This made me laugh so hard because Grace was a thief by name and by nature.

I was falling in love with this dog and she became my shadow. Her beautiful, kind heart came to the fore on many occasions when she displayed such compassion and kindness that it actually made my eyes well up with tears. One morning I was standing in the garden with all my dogs, drinking my coffee whilst they surveyed the property. Grace came running up to me with her lopsided little pace. She put her long nose in my hand and actually gave me a baby bird. It must have fallen out of the nest and Grace had found it. Now she had hunted for a living and you would think that this would have spurned her on to kill and mutilate. Not so. On two other occasions she also brought me baby birds that she had found, gently carrying them in her huge jaw and depositing them at my feet. How does this happen? Even when I think about it now I am amazed. To be honest there was a pure soul behind those beautiful brown eyes. When I looked into them I felt like I was looking into the windows of heaven. Her name couldn’t have done her more justice. Grace by name and grace by nature.

Greyhounds are notorious for self mutilation. Grace was accident prone and we had many visits to the vet to prove that. One night, just before we were going away for a week, Grace decide to jump the breadth of the swimming pool at home. What made her think she could accomplish that was beyond me. Obviously she couldn’t and we had to call our fabulous vet, Dr Hennie for an emergency visit. Grace had a very thin skin and any cut became a tear. It looked worse than it was but I nearly cancelled a seascape holiday because of her.

I have a plethora of animals ranging from pet sheep to goats, chickens and horses. Her introduction to all creatures great and small went without a hitch. Her only line in the sand was bedtime. When Grace went to bed nothing was allowed near her. She wouldn’t tolerate any interference with her sleep and would react with snapping jaws if they did. Everybody learnt that Grace was a no go when she went to bed. Much like me as even today my kids are scared of waking me up at night. Bloody right.

Grace had a fear of cows ( me too), lightning, fireworks, swimming and travelling. Throughout the years she learnt that going in the car meant that she would go nice places so she finally gave in and enjoyed the ride with her nose in the wind of the open window as we drove.

She had a little malevolent streak in her. If I went away and I didn’t take her with she would look for one of my treasures and destroy it. It became so bad that I had to clear my nightstand when I went out. One Sunday afternoon Christopher and I took the small dogs and went for a drive. When we returned I found that she had taken my prized Versace reading glasses and had destroyed them. They had no hope of ever being resurrected. At first I thought it was random items but then I came to notice it was all my prized items. If I wasn’t going to include her she would destroy my treasures. There was only one of her.

In 2018 my friend, residing in Holland, came to visit me. I gathered all the dogs, Briony and Sammy and we made the trek to the sea. It was a dream of mine to take my dogs to the beach and when the chance presented itself I made the most of it. I didn’t bargain on Grace singing all of the 660 km. It was hell. The drive was ok but Grace was wearing us down with her high pitched arias and by the time we got to the sea we were all slightly moerig. It was well worth the drive as the experience was an unforgettable one but coming home I gave her some CBD drops and she slept most of the way. Thank God for dagga.

I never went to the loo without having her long nose poke my face, smothering me in kisses. When I stood somewhere she would put her nose in my hand. I loved her lopsided trot and the stately way she would run with her shiny feathery coat singing in the wind. It always looked as if she was smiling. She would lie in my kitchen as I was cooking, her long body obscuring my way and I always had to step over her. On many occasions I told her she was going to make me fall. She had the most beautiful, soulful eyes and when she looked at you, you would feel peace throughout your being.

In later years we became like a car and a caravan, where the one was you would find the other. I took many of these moments for granted never paying attention to the fact that she was getting older. When she came to me in 2014 we estimated that she was about 4 years old. Things creep upon you slowly and before you know it you are looking into eyes that are starting to fade. That moment came upon me when I was sitting on the loo and she had her face in mine. The light caught her eyes and I was appalled to see that they had become milky with age. My Grace was getting old, time was catching up on us.

Still she continued to steal cupcakes from the table and take bites out of food waiting to be served. Her sweet tooth was legendary and she even found Christopher’s stash of nougat given to him by the kids for Christmas one year. She ate it all, wrapper included. The only telltale signs was the fact that a small piece had stuck to her top lip and I tried to get it off. Much to my amazement it was nougat. I immediately knew when and where… we were both in purgatory for a while after that incident.

Grace became the face of 50 Shades of Spay. She went to fundraisers, fairs and charity events charming people into donating towards our cause. She loved children and people allowing them to kiss and cuddle her. 

2022 wasn’t a great year for me. If it was a grape it would have been vinegar. Both my kids emigrated, I put two horses to sleep and I had to make serious choices about what I deemed to be kind and fair to my dog.

I had known that Grace was getting old. The realisation that she was struggling came to me when I saw how she was struggling to walk. Her back legs would sway and she couldn’t make it up the steps into the kitchen from the back yard anymore. I took her to my vet and pleaded with him to help. He looked at me and said that sometimes the hardest decisions are made in love.I took that as his way of telling me that I had to let go at sometime soon.

Our last car ride was to the farm. I opened the Goanywherevehicle’s windows and Grace stood with her long nose in the wind. I drove slowly and we both enjoyed the moment. I recalled the moments she added love and life to my days and I knew I would do what was best for her. I could never repay her for all the good she had added to our family but I could do this last thing for her. We arrived at the stables and I took her for a walk around the property. I had made arrangements to have her put to sleep there. She went and laid on her favourite bed in the lounge and as quietly as she came into my life she left. I curled up next to her and held her tight knowing that I would never get the chance again. We stayed that way until Lennie came to tell me that he had prepared he grave under the big old tree where I like to sit late afternoon. We covered her body in her favourite blanket and she was buried wearing her best collar cradling a small glass bottle containing a note saying: Here lies Grace Wilde. Companion and much loved four footed family member 2014 – 2022.

Ode to Grace:

Nothing prepared me for the feeling of loss that I experienced after her death. Even today as I write this I am a mess. My biggest fear is that I didn’t do her justice in this lifetime.

I miss her. I miss her long nose and her soulful eyes. I truly lost a friend and a companion but despite all of this I would do it again even knowing the outcome. How could I not? She added such colour to my life.

One dog overcame immense obstacles and didn’t let the past influence her life. She was kindness and compassion rolled into one. If we could adopt a leaf out of her book the world would be a better place. If this piece inspires people to go out and adopt a shelter dog it has done its job.

In the end it all boils down to being a better being. Do better and better will be done unto you. Sometimes it takes a dog to show us how.

I have a swing seat next to her grave. Every evening I take my dogs for a walk and then I sit there for a while. Sometimes I take a glass of wine there. I sit under the big old tree and I find myself. I know she lies right next to me and on a good day I close my eyes and feel her nose in my hand.

Hope you are comfortable where you are my Grace,

I hope somebody kisses your face,

I hope they remember you like treats…

like your ears being scratched or being tickled on your feet.

I hope you have a fluffy soft bed

and your supper is always lukewarm when fed.

I want you to know

We miss you so.

Sometimes I call you just to hear your name

things here are just not the same.

We visit you everyday and sit at your grave

I tell you all the stories of how we are being brave.

Keagen is far and soon Briony will be too

It’s just us oldies left at the zoo.

Singing our birthday song sounds empty too

there is no happy yappy birthday from you.

Nobody sings the song of their people when we drive in the car

It’s too quiet at home by far.

Know that you are so loved

even if you are looking at us from the Rainbow Bridge, up above.

What a privelage it was

to be loved and love such a special dog.

One day a very wise six year old little girl looked me into the eye and said :      “Sometimes you have to let go but there are a lot of memories here…”