My Animals = My Life

Ever since I was very young, I had always loved animals and got along with them a lot better than I do people. I don't know whether I just prefer our silent companions better, or I just am not a people person. All I know is that animals have always been a large part of my life.

I remember the day we brought my first pet home. Gypsy was a Siamese cross, black and white, with the longest tail and legs. He was so elegant in everything he did. I remember the day fondly because the first thing Gypsy did when he got out of his carrier was claw my bum! He was always the king of the house, having to sit higher than any of the other animals and definitely told the dogs who was boss! Unfortunately, Gypsy was put to sleep in February of this year for health reasons. He was 15 years old and had lived a wonderful life. Sleep tight, my King.

We had Gypsy for several years when my dad decided we could have another cat. Gypsy was 8 at this point, so probably not the best idea, but we did it anyway. This time we got a little female blue tortoise shell that we named Millie. To start with, she was a lovely little kitten, very affectionate, and loved to play. However, as she got older, we noticed she was getting exceptionally grumpy and used her claws more than she probably should have. But, as we had gotten her from a farm, her mother was a farm cat and her dad was more than likely a feral cat, we soon realised that she is who she is and we can't change her. Now we accept her for who she is, and have quickly realised that out of the four of us who live in our house (me, my mum, my dad and my sister), she likes my sister a lot more than she likes the rest of us!

When Millie was 4, myself and my mum finally wore my dad down enough to get a dog! So we went to the Dogs Trust and got a little Collie x Spaniel puppy that was originally called Candy Floss but we quickly renamed Ruby. She was always small, even compared to all her brothers, but it wasn't until she was spayed that we realised that she was more than likely the runt of the litter. When the vets went in to spay her, they realised that Ruby only had one kidney. The other one had never actually grown properly and had turned cystic. The vets removed it and informed us that whilst she will still function and pee as normal, if she ever had a kidney infection, it will be a lot worse than a normal dog with 2 kidneys.

Ruby caused us a lot of vet bills over the years, a lot of them to do with gastroenteritis; however, the biggest vet bill certainly took us all by surprise. At about 2 years old, we had noticed that ever so often she would hold one of her back legs up, hop over to us and let us put it back down with a pop in her joint. This happened in both her back legs and got myself and my mum very concerned. So we took Ruby to the vets, explained what had happened and tried to recreate the problem, but would it happen? Of course not! But the vet believed us and sent us off to see a specialist. As it turned out, it was her shin bones dislocating as the grooves they sat in weren't deep enough to hold them. So, she had surgery on both her back legs (one at a time, of course!) and it was very successful. The bill, howeve,r came to a whopping £3000! Thankfully, one thing the Dogs Trust recommended was that you insure your dog, which we did, and the insurance covered all of the surgery and staying in the vet's; the only thing it didn't cover was the food! But we were more than happy to pay for that to have our speedy puppy back!

When Ruby was 16 months old, we went back to the Dogs Trust and picked up my dog. Hattie is an Irish Setter cross, daft as a brush, and a complete saint of a dog. The amount of times having this girl has kept me going through some really tough times—I honestly could never thank her enough. As a puppy, she was all legs and just didn't know where to put them! The amount of times she used to go sprawling across the floor at home or go head over heels in the fields because she was running around too fast like a lunatic! Throughout her life, she has always made me laugh at least once a day and I'm sure she was sent into my life by an angel, because she is always looking out for me.

The last animal that came into my life is the one that keeps me here when the depression and anxiety kick in and all I can hear is the depression talking. She has kept me here when it felt like the whole world was against me and nothing would go right. She is Lexie, an 8-year-old Welsh Cob cross mare and my absolute world.

I got Lexie a little over 2 years ago, when I had been asked to leave my dream job due to not having enough experience and I was in a very dark place. I was stuck in a dead end job and was spending days on end in my room playing video games. My friend had sent me a picture of a horse at the livery yard she was at and told me she was for sale. The day after my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, I went to go and see her and ride her. It was not the most ideal first ride we had together; I was a nervous novice rider and Lexie was a nervous green horse. She was ridden first by one of the girls who worked at the yard, and was jumped by her, too. When I saw Lexie jump, I fell in love (but more about that later!). I got on and had a walk and trot around, but Lexie spooked at something which unbalanced and unnerved me a bit, but I was determined she was going to be mine! And a week later, on the 26th of August 2015, she became mine!

The road with Lexie has not been easy. At first she was so unbalanced, she would not canter under saddle or on the lunge. It took nearly 18 months, a lot of work, and some fantastic friends, but we finally got there! In the February of 2016, Lexie got a serious infection in her back leg; I was told by the vet that if I hadn't discovered it when I did, the infection would have travelled up to her hock and I would have had to have her put to sleep. It took two months, a lot of antibiotics and a leg double the size of her other one, but my girl came sound and I was given the all-clear to get back on her. This time off had set my girl back, though, and I was given another issue by Lexie: mounting.

Mounting has always been a slight issue with Lexie, but now it was taking at least 2 other people to hold her for me to mount her and people weren't always around when I rode, so I needed to figure the problem out and quick. A few weeks into my problem solving, a post on Facebook changed everything. Someone was looking for a pony that looked like my girl, wanting to know what happened to her and where she was. That pony was my pony. I had found one of her old owners and several messages later, a lot of my ponies' problems seemed a lot more valid. She didn't have the greatest start in life and didn't seem to have many stable homes until me. All of a sudden my outlook on my girl changed and that changed my way of riding her. The dynamic between me and my girl quickly changed and we soon became a proper team.

Jumping has always been a big part of mine and Lexie's life, but I didn't realise how much I enjoyed it until I got her. We quickly went from going over poles on the ground to jumping cross poles, and from there we have gained confidence in masses. We have taken part in many jumping competitions and come away with several rosettes, gaining the occasional injury but coming away beaming. It has only been this year, however, that we started taking jumping more seriously and have done several competitions this year in preparation for next year being our biggest year yet!

This past year has been very hard for me. I lost my boy Gypsy, moved away from home where I had no one, had depression kick my backside several times, and in the past month, I lost the only grandparent I had, my amazing Nanna. Many times I have thought, "I can't do this anymore," and the depression would make this big and bold and scream it round my head. However, there has been a strength from somewhere that even I don't know where it comes from, that fight backs the depression, quiets down the screaming, looks me dead in the eye and asks me, "What about Lexie and Hattie?"

Animals are animals; they cannot look after themselves, they need us to help them in life. But sometimes, just sometimes, we need them, too. I will always love my animals, they've saved my life.