Janetta Harvey - Saving Susie-Belle--Rescued from the Horrors of a Puppy Farm, One Dogs Uplifting True Story

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man

PUDDNHEAD WILSON, MARK TWAIN

I n the week before Christmas, on a bed beside a log burner in a house in England a dog with a belly full of lobster snoozed. A few months earlier that dog had lain in the cold and filth of a puppy farm, her belly empty of food but full with her last litter of puppies. For six years she had been trapped in a life of misery as someones commodity a puppy farm breeding bitch, tied up in the back of a putrid shed, never seeing the outside world, receiving little or no care, experiencing neglect to a horrifying degree. Producing puppies, thats something she must have been good at, for if not, she would have been dispatched, most likely shot. On leaving her particular hellhole she would have been missed by no one, never knowing that life can be good.

Ironic that in being good at the task, her continuing fertility condemned her to more years of cruelty than if she had been a failure. For she remained profitable all the while her thin, abused body produced the goods. Only when her babies stopped coming would she be allowed to rest in peace, however that arrived. For this little dog, peace came before death, for she is one of the lucky ones that is, if we regard surviving years of loneliness, pain and terror as being lucky. For she was rescued, lifted out of the dark and grubby hidden nightmare that is puppy farming and brought to safety into our world. Now she shares our peaceful home and experiences nothing less than complete loving daily care. Where once she was a scabby, nameless creature, now she has a beautiful name, and for my miniature schnauzer Susie-Belle life these days is good, as good as it can possibly be. Never again will it be anything less for this gentle soul who has suffered at the hands of humans who value commercial profits more than life itself.

Susie-Belle had been living with us for four months when she experienced her first ever Christmas outside of the puppy farm. During that time, she had gone from being a timid, bald, thin little creature to being a slightly less timid, a lot less bald, plump little pet. She arrived with a voracious appetite. Her timidity temporarily faded at mealtimes and we indulged her in ways that would exceed most peoples expectations of good food. Susie-Belle ate every meal like it might be her last and for a dog that had until recently known what it was to feel the pain of starvation, why would she not? In those first weeks with us, she experienced not only the sweet taste of freedom but delicious meals of venison, rabbit and hare plus delectable morsels of roast goose and some of our now legendary pre-Christmas lobster. For Susie-Belle survived starvation and neglect to find herself loved, protected and in a home of indulgent foodies.

In our house my husband Michel, a professional chef and culinary wizard, conjures up meals to delight and nourish all those under his roof, pets most definitely included. Susie-Belle had landed in foodie heaven, where the damage from her previous hell could be gently healed and with time would eventually be forgotten. For us food is a joy we share with our friends and family and in our home, our pets are family. We have owned miniature schnauzers for most of our married life and have always taken the view that if we are to bring dogs into our lives, then we must really live together as joyfully as they deserve, not just casually cohabit the shared space. We see that we must care for them as well as we care for any other family member and share all the good times we can provide.

With us, mealtimes are never functional affairs, theres mindfulness about how we prepare and enjoy food. We strive to eat healthily and well and most importantly we love doing so, whilst respecting the wise words of Hippocrates,

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food

Our philosophy with food is simple: it must be tasty and healthy and good to share and we have never seen any reason why our pets cannot be included in this. When Susie-Belle arrived in August 2011 she was so damaged that it was the most natural thing in the world for us to seek ways to help her heal through food. Diet is the fundamental way to promote good health and this is as true for animals as it is humans. In our frenetic modern lives, it is easy not to really give what we feed our pets much thought, though. But in our home food is one of our most thorough pleasures and our dogs thrive on what we do for them. Thats not to say they eat the same as we do, but they eat equally well. Many a time over the years friends have commented that our dogs eat better than some humans.

I work in the natural health field and Ive spent a long time understanding the nutritional needs of both humans and dogs. To provide a dog with a healthy diet, I know that a reasonable depth of knowledge is needed, along with a generous pinch of common sense. When I say we indulge our dogs, they are indulged through top nutrition with careful thought and planning. Theyre not given food that is wrong for them, they are given food that the wonderful animal humans love and live with needs. Canis lupus familiaris (the domestic dog) has managed to survive and thrive long before the advent of modern commercial food manufacturing. Its easy to feel that we cannot feed our pets well without relying on commercially prepared foods; all those tins and packets of complete dog food weighing down shelves in supermarkets and veterinary practices surely means that by doing it ourselves, we risk doing it wrong and without the correct approach that would be right. However, the American food writer Michael Pollans take on food in his book, In Defence ofFood, is one that resonates with us and one we find as relevant to feeding our dogs as it is to ourselves,

Dont eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldnt recognize as food. There are a great many food-like items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldnt recognize as food stay away from these.

So we home prepare meals for our pets and Susie-Belle, we soon discovered, is our perfect culinary companion. She will eat virtually everything we offer her and with such unmistakable pleasure that she delightfully quivers from nose tip to tail when a favourite dinner is served. For any dog owner, this would be a wonderful thing to see but, in Susie-Belles case, every single time it is a heart-melting sight and we never cease to be warmed by her joyous reaction. The frail, emaciated, severely damaged dog that came out of hell with very little life left in her bravely set aside her fears and by allowing herself to trust the humans with whom she was fated to live the rest of her life, she has embraced the life of a true canine gourmet. What is even sweeter is that she shows us daily how good it makes her feel and this is no mean achievement on her part as she spent years never knowing how to communicate anything but fear. Not all dogs that come from the type of background Susie-Belle has can show delight in food. Some are so traumatised after years of having to fight for scraps that they cannot eat normally when they go to live in their adoptive homes. Whether Susie-Belle was always a canine gourmet without the opportunity to know it, or whether living with foodies has created this we shall never know. What matters is that we have found a way of bringing her joy on a daily basis, something we heartily believe she has richly earned.