Poppy aka Pop-Tart, Papoula, Popstar….
by Marie K., Aspendale
Sunday August 2nd 2014, is the day my life changed. For the better.
I woke up like any other normal Sunday, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down to indulge in my favourite guilty pleasure — Keeping up with the Kardashians (I can only watch this when my partner is fast asleep as he HATES it!).
My mum and brother came over for a visit and we were all sitting around having a chat when out of nowhere my partner, Dean, informs me that he has found a litter of puppies and that we should go and look at them. Today.
He had been on my case about getting a dog for a while. I kept shutting down the idea because I knew it would be a lot of work and I didn’t think that I was ready to care for another living thing. After all, I could barely look after myself! There were days when it would get to 9pm and I would realise I had forgotten to eat dinner - how was I going to look after a dog if I couldn’t even remember to feed myself?
Dean had already given my Mum and brother the heads up and recruited them to convince me to get a dog. So, this innocent visit and chat turned into a ‘get a dog’ campaign. I reluctantly agreed to go and see the litter.
An hour later, we were in the car on the way to Lysterfield. I spent the entire trip saying “we are just looking”. As soon as we arrived and I saw the litter of adorable little golden puppies there was no way we were leaving without one! I was then determined not to pick a puppy, but to let a puppy pick us. I sat in the middle of all these adorable furry creatures and one kept coming to me. She climbed into my lap and soon fell asleep, I knew she was the one for us.
We put a deposit down on puppy #8 and were told to come back in 2 weeks to pick her up.
Those 2 weeks were filled with buying beds, bowls, food and preparing our home for our new addition. Looking back at that time now, I laugh at how naive we were. We had never been dog owners before, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into!
On 20th August, 2014 we picked up our puppy whom we decided to call Poppy. She also goes by the names of Pop-tart, Popsicle, Popstar and Papoula (we felt she needed a Greek version of her name as we have a Greek background).
The next few months consisted of puppy school, toilet training (we have never used the mop as often as we did during that time) and just learning about being dog owners. We took Poppy with us everywhere and would always get stopped by people so they could see her. We still take her with us everywhere we can but don’t get stopped as much anymore, I guess an adult dog isn’t as cute as a puppy to some.
We have been really lucky with her as she has only ever destroyed a couple of things and is generally very well behaved — considering she is a Labrador x Golden Retriever! I was preparing myself to have our furniture ruined and everything chewed, but luckily Poppy isn’t too interested in chewing couches.
In June 2015, Dean and I went on a holiday to Thailand. I searched the internet high and low to find someone who would care for Poppy as much as we did while we were away. The universe aligned for us because we found Kate and her family. They looked after Poppy for the 3 weeks and treated her as one of their own. I can tell that Poppy really loves Kate. One day I met up with her and her dog, Finn, at a park in Sandringham for a doggy play date. After the dogs were exhausted, we walked back to our cars together and instead of Poppy getting into our car to come home, she got into Kate’s! I think she was pretty disappointed to be coming home with me that day!
Poppy also has a ‘cousin’ Ruby who is a Golden Retriever. She is a couple of months younger than Poppy but a thousand times more trouble! I remember we were looking after Ruby for a couple of nights whilst Dean’s sister was interstate. I took them both to a big park in Edithvale, there was an oval at least 1 km away from us with a Soccer game being played. Ruby spotted the soccer ball, ran onto the field and stole it! Poppy thought that looked like fun so she followed Ruby. The whole game stopped because Ruby had run off with the ball. Everyone was watching Ruby running away with the ball, Poppy running behind her and me running behind the 2 of them screaming both names out! There were at least 30 people at the soccer match and they were all laughing at me chasing these 2 crazy dogs. I eventually caught Ruby and had to shamefully walk back to the soccer pitch and hand the ball back. The whole crowd clapped and cheered — I was mortified.
Unfortunately our dream dog hasn’t had a dream run. About a year ago we noticed that she would hold her hind leg up every now and then, when she did hold this leg up she would whimper and couldn’t walk.
After numerous visits to vets she was diagnosed with a luxating patella, which is a fancy way of saying that she has a floating knee cap. The vet told us that she was holding her leg up because she kept dislocating her knee.
The only way to fix this was a pretty invasive and extensive surgery. Being new to dog ownership, we didn’t have pet insurance so we were totally shocked with how much this was going to cost. She was a member of our family and we knew she was in pain so there was no way we wouldn’t go ahead with the surgery.
She had her operation in December 2015. The day we dropped her off, I cried saying goodbye to her and I cried all the way home. She had to stay in overnight for observation and our home felt so empty without her. That night we realised what we already knew in our hearts — our home without Poppy isn’t a home at all. She brings so much energy, happiness and love into our lives and not having her around was horrible. I rang the surgery every hour to check in on her and by the 3rd phone call the nurses knew it was me calling from the caller ID.
I took four weeks off work to care for her full time post-surgery as we were told she would need full time assistance. Most dogs who have this kind of surgery don’t walk on their leg for a few weeks, but not our little Popstar. She was walking on that leg within a week and the surgeons were astounded by how quickly she recovered, a true testament to her determination and resilience. After 4 months of rehab, check-ups and very limited walks, Poppy was given the all clear and was allowed to return to normal activity. As hard as it was to watch her go through this, it has been the best thing we could have done for her. She is a completely different dog, she runs faster, plays harder and we can tell that she is no longer in pain. Before, she used to try and play with the other dogs but would restrain herself. Now she is leading the pack, rolling around in the mud with the other dogs (thank goodness for $10 car wash baths) and just doing what a dog should be doing — loving life.
Poppy is back to normal now and just celebrated her 2nd Birthday with a party at doggy daycare. I baked a special dog birthday cake for her of course and she loved all of the attention!
We have recently moved to Aspendale, across the road from the beach. Poppy is now lucky enough to go to the beach most days and although she has taken some time to get used to the water and still won’t go in past her tummy (like me), she does love it. She loves it even more when there are other dogs to chase and play with on the sand.
Poppy has changed our lives forever, I never knew it was possible to love a dog this much and we cannot imagine our future without her. She makes us smile and laugh on a daily basis and is there for us no matter what.
She doesn’t judge us, she doesn’t care about where we live or how much money we have or what we look like. She loves US. There is something extra special about that unconditional love you get from a dog and something I believe that we humans can learn from.
I will be forever grateful to my partner Dean for convincing me to get a dog (don’t tell him that — if he knew he wouldn’t stop saying ‘I told you so’).
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