This is the story of a disabled dog that was known as “Lightning Dave”. He was the third one born out of eleven pups and was also the smallest one of the litter. Right from birth, “Ruby”, his mum, shunned him from the litter. We, Paula and I, had to hand feed him as he had almost died from starvation. As we fed and nurtured him from near death, little did we know that he was going to be so disabled? Had we known this, we would have let nature, as hard as it is, take its course and let him die.

As it turned out, Dave became so disabled his life was cut short and we had to have him put to sleep in the end. It broke my heart to have to do such a thing, but on the vets advise, it had to be done.

I'll let Dave take up the story of how he became to be born and how he lived and died.

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Mum went off out for the day to meet 'Spot' and came home pregnant.

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After a few weeks of carrying 11 pups, I was number 3 to be born at 20 minutes past midnight on the 10/05/2008. I took age’s to come out and be born. Stuck in my mum for 2 hours after my sister Tallulah was born. But then with my disability’s it was understandable that I took a while to emerge.

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Anyways, when I was first born I managed to get a few little meals from my mum before the rest of my brothers and sisters were born. Once they were all born, I found it hard to get to a teat to feed. I was the smallest one out of the whole litter and found it hard to fight off my brothers and sisters to get food. After around twelve hours I was really struggling and gave up all hope of getting another meal from my mum. She had left me to one side of the whelping box to die. In the doggy dog world, the strongest survive and the weakest die. I was the weakest one and my mum did nothing about it. She only had seven teats and the first one born had already died, so that left seven teats for ten pups. So someone had to wait for a teat each meal time and I quickly found it was going to be me every time. My brothers and sisters where too strong for me and they just pushed me out of the way to feed.

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I lay on my own for a while just slowly starving to death. I took a big breath and gave out a long whine like it was my last. Lucky for me, Armine heard this whine and came to me to investigate. He found me all on my own and thought I was going to die. I remember him trying to get me to feed from my mum, but I was now too weak to feed and I just wanted to die. Several times he took one of my brothers or sisters off of a teat and put me on it. I just didn’t have the energy to feed.

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The next thing I knew was getting my mouth opened and milky food was poured in my mouth and it flowed down my throat to my stomach. Only trouble with this was that I found it hard to swallow and most of this food came straight out again. I had a couple of spasms while being forced fed by my owners and my whole body just seized up for a while and I felt like giving up altogether. At one point I thought I had really died, but there I was, getting another meal shoved down me. By this time, I was living on and off in a Tupperware tub, out of the way of all the others. I was getting five star treatment with a meal every couple of hours.

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Somehow though, the milky food seemed to do me some good and I started to feel better after a couple of days. I was pulling through to live like my brothers and sisters and I had some great help and tons of attention on my side. Armine and Paula were feeding me regular meals every couple of hours or so and I soon got the strength back in me to suckle from my mum. Only trouble was, were my siblings. When I wanted to feed, so did they and it was I that got pushed out every time.

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However, my owners were determined that I should live and made sure I got plenty of food.

They also made sure that all my siblings were getting an extra meal as well. Mum only had 7 teats and this meant that there was always a queue for a teat, with ten of us fighting for one. Me and my siblings found this after-market puppy milk a bit rich and it gave us runny poo's. But it had to be done, especially with me, as I was getting nothing from my mum.

It wasn’t long before I was starting to crawl again and my owners had to be very careful to not let me crawl straight off the table. They kept me in a Tupperware tub for a while and when my siblings were calm in the whelping box, I was put in with them, just so that they and my mum didn’t forget who I was. Armine was determined not to let that motherhood and siblings bonding diminish.

 However, things used to get a bit ruff in the whelping box when all my brothers and sisters were trying to feed at the same time. I would get push from pillar to post and Armine was afraid that I would get hurt. Most of the time he would find me on my own in some corner of the whelping box. I didn’t mind too much, as by now I knew I would get rescued and taken out of the box for a meal on my own. It was nice warm milk, not quite like my mums, but nice all the same. I always got first servings and my siblings got what was left. Most times as well, I would get put onto a teat on my mum when my siblings had finished eating. But most of my early days I never stood a chance.

As I grew bigger, I got stronger than but not as strong as the others. I was small from the start and this was the way I was going to stay. I got the name “Little Africa” at first because the brown mark on my back. It looked a bit like the shape of Africa. This name soon changed when the next door neighbours saw me and ‘Elizabeth’, next door, named me “Dave”. No-one seems to know why, as it was just a name she came out with and it stuck.

I was “Africa Dave” for a short while and that soon got shortened to just “Little Dave” or “Dave”.

So I was to be known as "Dave" and I got some funny looks when people asked my owners,  “ what’s the little dog called?” ……… “Dave”, they would say. ….. “What’s that, did you say, Dave?”  ….. “Yes, that’s right, Dave”. Similar conversations were what I was to hear time and time again. All along I was thinking, what’s wrong with the name Dave? My owners liked it and that was that.

The time came to go for our first day out to the vet to have our tails docked and dew claws removed. I was 3 days old and I was the last one to have my tail docked and dew claws removed. It was painful having my tail cut and really excruciating painful having my dew claws removed. I remember hearing Armine comment on the journey home that he would never take another dog to have their dew claws removed ever again. He said, “I thought it was too bloody painful for the pups to have their dew claws removed. It was all over quick, but it really did hurt the pups a lot. I wouldn't want to have to do it again, ever…"

You can see here the differance in my size to my brother, "Buster".

He was the second largest out of us all.

All my siblings didn’t have any problems when having their dew claws removed, but I did. Mine went a bit septic and Armine had to squeeze out some infection that had formed under a big scab. It was horrible, all yellow and looked like runny cheese. He treated it with some TCP and within a couple of days or so, it was healing very well.

Well it wasn’t long before we all found we had legs and could run around the whelping box. Exploring a big whelping box was great fun for me and I was looking forward to exploring the rest of the house. But first I had to stay in the box and I was only allowed out for my five star meals. Now that I was feeding from mum and getting my extra meals from my owners, I was perking up really well. I felt great and loved to play around and try and fight off my siblings for a cuddle on my mum.

The big whelping box was starting to look smaller as we all grew bigger. Armine used to let us out now and then, just for a little run around. The conservatory, that we were all in, looked really big and scary and me and my siblings were all a bit scared to go anywhere at first. But onwards we went on an exploration across the floor of the conservatory. In and out of the legs of the table and chairs that sat in the middle of the room.

We all finally got the courage to go over the whole floor and explore it from corner to corner. However, while doing this we found a secret door that went to the very big garden outside. We weren’t allowed to go outside yet, as we all needed to have an inoculation jab before we could go out into the big wide world of the garden.

We weren’t going to get this jab until we were 6 weeks old. It seemed like forever to wait, but it was only a matter of a couple weeks. We had to spend the time waiting, playing in the conservatory. This was great fun and took our minds off of going out to the big garden. Some of us, including me, were learning to play “fetch the ball”. This was great fun and I really enjoyed running after it and bringing it back.

It was around this time that was learning how to out-wit my siblings. Because I was little, I would always get pushed out of the way for everything. If I wanted a toy to play with, I had to get it slyly or I finished up in a fight with my bigger siblings and they would always win.

Most of the time, I was to be found on my own doing my own thing. My mum didn’t really want me and one time she took me out of the big box and she dumped me on my owner’s bed. I couldn’t believe it, as I was running and feeding just like all the others by now. I still didn’t get the comforting looks and cuddles like all the others got. One time she took me outside to Armine and dumped me on the ground while he was mixing some cement. She did try and make it clear, that she wasn't keen on having me around.

My owners used to find a time when my mum was sleeping away from the others and they used to put me on a teat or lay me with my mum for some comforting cuddles.

 It's time now to go to the next page to follow my short life on this planet.

Click HERE or click next at the bottom of the page.