This is the story of Carla.

Background to Carla’s Story.

To set the background to this story, I must tell you that I have been married for 43 years this year (2023) and my wife and I have owned dogs all our lives.

We have probably had more than 20 dogs in our lives and we are those people that greet your dogs before we greet you.

Around 2015 and 2016 all the dogs we had were elderly, and they have all passed since. When Jasmin died – she was an amazing pitbull cross, we were devastated, and our Daughter (hello, Caylin!) decided that the therapy we needed was a new dog.

She found a Boston terrier who needed to be rehomed. She was what they call a “surrender”. She was big and strong for a Boston and loved jumping up onto us, and that was the main reason for her surrender because the lady who had owned her previously was elderly and was getting pushed over and hurt by Carla.

So, Carla pitched up into our lives and we loved her from day one. She arrived at a household of 4 other dogs and fitted right in.

We became Boston Terrier addicts, which – if you have ever owned one – is self-explanatory, and started fostering other Boston terriers.

Fostering dogs is so beautiful because you know you are helping dogs find their forever homes and at the same time is heartbreaking because you fall in love with the dog while you are caring for it, and then they move back out of your lives.

Around about then we had a “foster fail” with another Boston Terrier and Pablo came into our lives. My wife was running a daycare at the time and we decided to stop fostering.

The health of our dogs and what we used to feed them.

Confession time. We have always spoiled our dogs. We feed them any and many scraps, we were naughty.

I remember buying pork rind (a large piece too) and cooking it for my dogs as a treat. They went mad for it and used to beg all day for those unhealthy treats until they were all gone. BAD ROB!

At the time we were buying the cheapest dog food on the market. We used to fill a large bowl and leave it out for the dogs to eat if and when they felt like it.

Our dogs were not fat and did not seem unhealthy. We walked them and lived on a property with big grounds and they all ran around and played happily all the time.

They drank our leftover coffee, cleaned our plates after every meal and much more.

Our lives Changed.

We were living in South Africa and had lived there for our whole lives. But crime and corruption caused a lot of problems and we eventually were caught up in a bad home invasion and needed to leave the country. (armed robbers threatening to kill us and our dogs was so traumatic.)

We moved to Canada, for a much better life, and brought the two Boston Terriers with us. Bostons do not fly well, and we were so stressed out while they flew to us, but they got there and eventually settled in nicely.

Did we change how we fed our dogs?

This is such an important question.

We still bought the cheapest dog food. We still fed them scraps from our plates. We also added bought treats to their diets.

But, I should point out that by now we were aware of a long list of things that dogs should not eat. Like chocolate. All the dogs we had in the 80s and 90s ate chocolate with us all the time, but by now we had been made aware of the bad stuff and were being a lot more careful.

Our dogs started to get fat. There is no nice way of putting it.

So we put them on diets, no more snacks, and smaller controlled portions of food. They then lost weight and life carried on. If we saw them gaining a bit of weight we cut back on snacks and stuff again.

Exercise.

Perhaps it is worth noting that they got a lot less exercise over winter in Canada because of the cold, but in the summer they got more than enough walks.

Both dogs getting health problems.

Now you should remember that both the dogs were getting older and this would always be a factor in their lives.

Pablo used to be an escape artist. He would climb a 6-foot fence easily to escape an area that he felt trapped in. (He had been very badly abused before we got him). As he got older, he became less agile. 2 winters ago he slipped on the ice and hurt his back so badly that we thought he was dying there and then. He was in pain for months, and we resolved to try everything we could to improve their health.

We started to test better dog foods. More expensive brands. Mixing dog foods for variety. We also started to “dabble” in making raw and cooked food for them.

We started this journey far too late to save Carla’s life. It haunts me every day that I know that had I changed how we fed her years ago she might still be alive.

Carla went over the rainbow bridge in January 2023. It has been 7 months now, and I still burst into tears writing this line. The biggest problem was pancreatitis which was so bad that we could not save her then.

Dedicated to Carla.

Being a dog lover helps my passion for this blog.

All the focus we have been applying over the last few years on tiny details of what we feed our dogs helps my passion for this blog.

Perhaps I have become more fragile as I get older, and I know that the Fibromyalgia and PTSD I get that was caused by that home invasion have made me a lot more sensitive to health issues.

But…

The reality is that Carla and Jasmin and for that matter Pablo should have lived healthier lives and I feel guilty about that.

This blog is 100% dedicated to Carla.

I will do everything in my power to make sure that I help as many people as I can with what they should and should not be feeding their dogs.