Barby Keel - Will You Love Me?: The Rescue Dog That Rescued Me

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Also by B ARBY K EEL

Gabby: The Little Dog Who Had to Learn to Bark

Will You Love Me?

THE RESCUE DOG THAT RESCUED ME

BARBY KEEL
with Cathryn Kemp

CITADEL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

CITADEL PRESS BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2018 The Orion Publishing Group Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First published by Trapeze, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd, an Hachette UK company.

CITADEL PRESS and the Citadel logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-8065-4061-0

Electronic edition:

ISBN-13: 978-0-8065-4062-7 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-8065-4062-1 (e-book)

Table of Contents

I NTRODUCTION

P ipzedene occupies twelve acres of lush, rolling Sussex countryside off Freezeland Lane in Bexhill. I bought the land in 1971 with savings Id scraped together through working as a chambermaid for ten years, and with help from my partner at the time, Les, although the majority of it was paid for by me.

Id always dreamt of owning land. Ive never cared about houses or possessions, and ever since I was a little girl all I had wanted to do was look after animals, and someday provide them with a safe home to live out their lives in peace and harmony.

On a spring day in 1971, I stepped out of the car and took in the sight of the swathes of vivid green fresh grass and trees bursting into life after their winter slumber. I knew Id arrived somewhere special. I breathed in the scent of flowers and woodland, of mud and pasture, and I knew in my bones that this land was meant to be mine. I bought it that day, and within a couple of weeks I had moved myself, Les, a devilishly handsome man with golden hair and a charming smile, and my aging father, who was in his late sixties, onto the site in two dilapidated trailers. My two dogs, a spaniel called Pip and a German shepherd called Zede, bounded out of the back of the car and tore into the paddock, barking and leaping with joyful abandon. The sight of their glee at seeing all the space to play in and the smells to swoon over made my heart sing. At that moment I knew I was home.

The original plan was to settle there and to take in a few stray animals. When I was a child, my father had rescued many a beleaguered stray or pet shop animal by bringing them home to be cared for, and it was something my father and I shared together. I would often race home from school and wait by the front gate to see if Dad was coming back with a new pet, usually a bedraggled-looking cat or dog, though once it was a monkey and once even a bush baby. He spent most of the little money he earned as a chef in a small hotel in Eastbourne on giving these creatures the life they deserved.

My father had a gentle presence, a sweet nature, and a glint in his eyes. Hed peer over his spectacles while checking over each new find, before reassuring himself that all the animal needed was a bit of love and tenderness. He gave that in spades, and Im sure that his love for those animals was the catalyst for my lifelong passion for furry, feathery, or scaly friends.

Looking after these charges was the way my dad and I spent time together, and I adored our shared evenings, trying to coax a kitten into eating some leftover meat or bread soaked in milk. In those days, we had little enough to share, and I marveled at my dads courage in risking the wrath of my mother in bringing home yet another hungry mouth, albeit a furry one, to feed. My mum would stand in the doorway, her bulky frame simmering with resentment, her hands on her hips, shaking her head slightly. He would come in, a dog trotting after him or a cat in his arms, and hed smile as if she was thrilled to see him. That used to make me chuckle, and anyone who dared defy my rather overbearing mother was a hero to me.

Dad waited until he and Mum had separated before he dared bring home the monkey, though. By then he was living with me, a girl in her twenties, in a ground-floor apartment. Seeing that daft creature, I was wary at first, but I couldnt help bursting out laughing.

Dad, what have you done this time? I shrieked, as the monkey jumped onto my shoulder and began scratching softly at my ear. He looked miserable in that shop.... I just had to buy him, Dad replied, shrugging his shoulders and making me laugh again at the incongruous nature of our life. Before Id even put the kettle on to make tea for him, hed walked out to the shed and started gathering materials to build the monkey its own cage, taking up half the tiny living room in the process. I didnt mind. I was as besotted as Dad was.

Taking in animals was as natural to me as breathing country air, and it wasnt long after Id bought the land, which I named Pipzedene after my three animalsPip, Zede and my bush baby Deanathat people started bringing strays to me. I started by providing refuge for a few dogs and a couple of cats that roamed free across the land, then came the horses, then chickens, then a sheep or two. Once the larger animals arrived, I set about putting up fencing around the boundary of my land. I wanted the animals to live freely, but didnt want them running across or up the lane and causing havoc for my neighbors.

I had to sell my car and stop my life insurance to pay for the wood, but I didnt care. Who would I leave my land to anyway? I had never wanted children, and none ever came. My animals have always been my babies. I have fed, nursed, cuddled, and shared my home with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of animals that have needed my care over the past thirty-seven years.

The trickle of strays and abandoned mutts and cats soon became a deluge. I needed to build more enclosures: pens for the cats, kennels with runs for the dogs and spaces for the rabbits, chickens, cockerels, geese, ferrets, sheep, cows, goats, horses, and pigs, which I did brick by brick so that they could live out their lives here. Les and I built a bungalow for us, but, unbeknownst to me, he didnt apply for planning permission, and council planners forced us to knock it all down only months later. We lived in a leaky old trailer, then when our relationship ended and Les moved out, I stayed there alone for almost twenty years before saving enough money to build another home, a small, squat single-story building that sits in the heart of the land.

In 2002, when we became a registered charity, Pipzedene became the official site of the Barby Keel Animal Sanctuary, and it is here, in this special place, that I have dealt with the daily arrival of unwanted, abandoned, hungry, and neglected animals that find their way to me. For many, we are their last hope. All of my animals have a sad story to tell. Some have suffered at the hands of their previous owners. Others have been neglected and left to fend for themselves, almost starving in the process. Many have suffered through sheer indifference. Some healthy young animals have missed death by a whisker, having been taken to a vet or animal center to be put down because the owner no longer wanted them. It is astonishing and heartrending, and every day I shake my head at the cruelty and selfishness of fellow humans. Yet every day, my volunteers here at the sanctuary show me otherwise, that they can dedicate their lives to giving comfort and hope to animals who may have been destroyed or dumped if we werent here.

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