When a giant dog with three legs is the best medicine
By BEL MOONEY
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Perfect pal: Owen's life was turned around by Haatchi
Terrible cruelty leads to devoted healing; from despair grows hope...Does that all sound too over-the-top, even sentimental?
Maybe, but at the centre of each of these heart-warming stories about animals and children is just such a miraculous shift. Pets As Therapy may seem a modern concept, but for many years it has been well known that animals can be used to help human beings in distress.
No one - not even the most pet-friendly neuro-scientist - will ever fully be able to explain why. What matters is to open all hearts and minds to the infinite possibilities that lie within the idea - and (surely) to re-examine the way this country’s laws tend to exclude animals from care homes, hospitals and other institutions where they might perform healing miracles, just like Haatchi and Billy with their respective families.
Writer Wendy Holden tells the story of Haatchi and the boy nicknamed ‘Little B’ with warmth and understanding.
One freezing night just over two years ago a man (never found) bludgeoned a five-month-old Anatolian Shepherd dog over the head and left him to die on a railway line. A driver spotted him seconds too late. The terrified puppy had one back leg and tail severed, but managed to crawl away.
Then followed a sequence of events to renew faith in human nature. From the rail supervisor who was the first to find the dog, through the people who saved his life, to those who were determined to find him a ‘forever home’ - every human being who met the crippled dog showed a goodness to cancel out the cruelty which had almost been his doom.
Wedding day: Little B as Best Man and Haatchi as Best Dog
And then there was Owen Howkins. The little boy (now eight) was born with a rare genetic order which causes his muscles to tense permanently, confining him to a wheelchair.
Owen’s parents, Will and Kim (both in the RAF) had parted - and Will became the principal carer.
But then Will met pretty New Zealander Colleen Drummond - and this strong, loving young woman was to transform the family.
For Colleen was a dog trainer, and it was she who fell in love online with the enormous disabled dog who was to bring comfort and stability into little Owen’s life.
It isn’t everyone who could take on a giant, three-legged dog. But from the moment they first saw Haatchi interact with Owen, Will and Colleen had no doubts.
The dog - three times the boy’s size - rested his head on Owen’s leg and they just stared at each other. For the rest of that weekend dog and boy lay together - and their lives were changed for ever.
There is an almost poetic symmetry in the fascinating and moving story of how Haatchi and ‘Little B’ each suffered further acute health problems, helped each other through difficult treatment, and developed into the rather famous duo they are today - winners of awards and hob-nobbers with stars like Brian May and Rupert Grint.
The boy felt he had to be as brave as his dog, taking his medicines and eating the right food, just as Haatchi did.
At the same time, ‘Haatchi responded equally strongly to the child he now saw it as his duty to protect’.
But even as a dog-lover, I have to point out that the human story is as inspiring as the animal saga - since the resilience and love shown by Owen’s whole family must surely be given its full weight.
By the time we reach Colleen’s and Will’s wedding, with Owen as best man and Haatchi as best dog, it’s increasingly hard to read the suspiciously blurry pages ….
Healing power: Fraser Booth with Billy the cat
Similarly, no cat-lover will be surprised by the story of how a grey and white rescue cat called Billy wove his feline magic around Fraser, the four-year-old autistic boy whose parents, Louise and Chris, knew only too well the strain of living with his condition.
Billy had been abandoned by his owners, and from the moment he walked into the Booths’ home Louise ‘began to sense that Billy had an instinctive understanding of Fraser and his needs’.
Part of the family: Billy the cat with Fraser and mum Louise and dad Chris
Yet all the time she is aware that her practical husband - electrician on the Queen’s Balmoral Estate - is wary of attributing too much to the cat, so keeps her counsel about the little, everyday miracles she observes.
Still, even the logical male cannot fail to notice how Fraser calms down when the cat is near, tolerates hated bath time because the cat is watching, and generally comes out of himself because he has a new friend.
When Fraser goes missing (as cats will) overnight, Fraser’s parents panic, because they realise how much the cat has come to mean to the boy. Less dramatic than Haatchi’s story, Billy’s is one of quiet, enigmatic triumph.
Even without the uplifting element of child-animal bonding, I would feel humbled as well as educated by the human stories of what life with a child who is ‘different’ entails.
But then we are left with the tantalising question of just how the dog and the cat tuned into the aching human need and filled such a void in the little boys’ lives.
Little B’s stepmother Colleen invokes ‘karma’: the idea that the dog saved by a miracle learns how to save. And ‘saviour’ is the very word used of Billy the cat by Fraser’s mum. Thousands of animal-lovers (including this one) will understand.
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