The owner: Gail Thomson, 25, lives in Aberdeen with her three kids and their dog Missy who, despite a rocky start in life, is now thriving and a “real snuggle bug”.
When Gail rescued Missy at eight weeks old, the Cane Corso, German Shepherd, Irish Wolfhound cross pup was “at death’s door”.
But now, at a year old Missy’s life has been completely transformed and Gail says Missy is the one who is now helping her.
Here’s what Gail had to say about Missy…
I rescued Missy when she was just eight weeks old. She was the pup that looked unlikely to survive, and she was just skin and bone.
But I kept her, reared her back to health, and got her fit.
She’s just over one now, and she’s amazing. She loves kids — kids are her thing — she goes daft for any kid that comes near her.
It took a lot of time, work and money to get her from being on death’s door, so skinny and emaciated with sores on her paws, to the dog she is now. She’s big, she’s healthy, she’s strong, she’s thriving.
It was about eight months before she really came out her shell and her personality decided to show. She’s mischievous too, so I named her correctly.
‘She’s chosen my son as her person’
I don’t really know how it happened, because I feed her, I do everything with her, but the minute my seven-year-old son comes through the door she ditches me and follows him.
He will be playing his Xbox and she will lie on his bed with him, or if he’s watching TV she has to lie on him.
Missy just loves cuddles, particularly with kids. And she’s very protective of all my children as well, if she hears one of them crying in another room or something she will go straight to them.
She comes with me on the school runs, and she loves going on adventures with her little people around nature trails and wood walks.
But she loves scent work too, she’s very good at sniffing things out. So my kids will hide treats around the house and things and tell her to go find them.
It’s just a fun game they all like to do with her, and she can sniff out the kids in a heartbeat as well.
‘I’d be lost without Missy’
I’ve got quite bad mental health, and if I’m having a really bad day she just automatically knows.
She’ll come up and lie up against my body and cuddle into me if I’m upset or something.
Missy hasn’t been trained to do anything like that, it’s just her natural instinct, it’s like she’s saying ‘you’re sad, let me love you’.
I had a Cane Corso called Brock, I got him when my middle daughter was a year old, so we had him for five years.
And he was a bit reactive to other dogs, but when Missy came along she helped to calm him down and he was like this chill dog, she just has that effect on everyone.
He died in May, unfortunately, and it was such a heartbreak, but Missy has really helped us through.
And, rescuing Missy gave me something to focus on too, because at that point my mental health was really poor. But helping her was my focus and it kept me going.
I’d be lost without her, to be honest.
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