Litchi’s Story

Well, seems like this blog is getting off to a weird start.  I was supposed to be visiting the shelters and letting you know what is happening there.  However, my husband had his infusion yesterday and, being the good wife (I think), I took him and drove him home thereafter.  On top of that, I have flu!  This is not the way it was meant to happen.  My husband has Crohn’s disease, which started many, many years before I met him, or, for that matter, before the medical fraternity understood the disease.  To “help him”, they removed the majority of his inards and left me with what I refer to as a “shell” of a man.  I still maintain that I had to agree to take him Voetstoets (a South African term often used legally for “as is”) when I married him.  I don’t know if he is impressed.  He smiles when I say these things but it’s anyone’s guess as to how delighted he is to be called such things.  Oh well, what would life be without a sense of humour. 

But, I digress.  The point of this is to tell you stories of the animals – not my husband, but the furry kind. 

The flu requires that my first real blog starts from bed – my own personal little shelter.  So I will start with stories of my furry little critters, all of whom are rescues, one of whom led me to start studying animal behaviourism and all have led me to this point.

The tale begins with Litchi, the dog.  The only animal in the house with a well thought out name.  The rest are my husband’s fault and you’ll see why as we post more blogs.  Litchi’s full name is Lady Litchfield.  I have no idea what she is, other than the fact that there is definitely Staffordshire Bull Terrier in her.  So, she’s not a proper Staffie but Litchfield is a town in Staffordshire, so my folks and I decided to call her a Litchfield Terrier and so came the name Lady Litchfield.  You would be astounded to hear how many people ask her breed and truly believe they know something about the Litchfield Terrier when told.  “Oh really”, they’ll enthuse, “they are a very rare breed, aren’t they!”.  Well, yes, especially as there is only one of them!  She was found wandering the streets of Yeoville, a rather run down, neglected suburb of Johannesburg.  She was under 6 months old and had clearly had no human socialization, except maybe to be pushed or kicked out of the way.  She turned out to be somewhat people aggressive, a rather frightening prospect in a Staffie cross.

Tune in for my next blog and I’ll let you know how life progressed with my rather “special needs” dog.