This is the story of Nanette, and in many ways, it is also my story. The first thing I noticed were the gates... they were open but they were tall, solid and very dark with an air of finality about them which shouted 'confinement' at me. I immediately felt deeply depressed.
We drove in and parked. The clear sky and sunshine... even in February and the smiles and welcome of the kind people who greeted us did nothing to alter this feeling. The barking of some 80 dogs was deafening as I opened the door of the car......each one seemed to have a message and yet the message was always the same...'Please take me home'.
My eyes filled with tears as I walked slowly round and visited the cages and runs of so many 'lost souls'. Each one greeted me desperately and gobbled up the tiny pieces of liver I had brought with me.......There was the hunting dog with epilepsy...I caressed him and felt his awful desperation. He had regular bad fits and in the winter, would often be found lying in the pen in the morning with his coat frozen to him ..... Next, I met the little dog with leishmaniose...a killer disease. They told me he was 'in remission' but as I watched his pathetic attempts to reach me through the wire of his enclosure, our eyes met...and we both knew it would not be long...Then there were the old dogs,.who one knew would never find a home. I wanted to take them all with me!!!
The staff were slow to take me to 'the traumatised Basset d'Artois'..in fact, it was necessary to ask more than once, and then be accompanied by the administrator of the Refuge. He came, eventually, with a large set of keys. He unlocked a gate and we entered a small hut. The walls were damp and it was dark, the windows had no glass .. Three very friendly dogs rushed forward to greet me and I noticed just one kennel.with no bedding...not even any straw... for 4 dogs!!.?.. then I saw her!!... She was pressed in the corner.;...face to the wall. She knew I had come for her and she was terrified. The man bent over her as she trembled with fear...I saw that he had a special feeling for her.... He told me that one time she had escaped from the Refuge and he had found her in the hills a week later. I watched him struggling with his emotions as he realised the moment of her departure from his care was imminent...I also saw that he doubted I would have the love and patience to see her through to health and sanity. I did not try to convince him. ..There was nothing to say....I came with my mind already made up after the dream.... Reluctantly, he agreed to get her to the car.... 'but she will empty her stomach' he protested. 'Yes, perhaps, but you will have to carry her, you are strong'. I replied. With great difficulty, John lifted 25 kilos of reluctant hunting dog and began the 200 yards struggle to the the car. Sure enough, just as we arrived at the car door.... Nanette emptied her stomach all over him!!With the dog safely inside the car, we went to the office to fill out the paperwork, I made a payment to take Nanette out and left 10 CD's of my own work; Requiem' for them to sell for the refuge....I left with a contract, which I later discovered, described her as 'male' and 'castre'!!!! I can only put this down to John's state of mind at having to give up the dog he had tried so hard to protect. My friends and I....with Nanette in the back of the car beside me, set off on the 2 hour journey back home. She pressed herself in the corner, trying to make herself invisible!! On the journey home, I was trying to work out how I could get a 25 kilo dog, rigid with fear through the garden and up 20 steps to my apartment. When we arrived, it was clear she would have to be carried. My Dutch friend David, who accompanied me with his wife Mary, helped me lift her out of the car and carry her across the small garden and then up the steps to the door...... we lifted her inside and placed her in the bed in the corner of the lounge, prepared for her before I left. She turned her back to the room and pressed her head into the corner , and there she stayed for the next 2 weeks!
That evening, sitting in the lounge with Nanette in her bed on my left, I was overwhelmed with the enormity of what I saw and what I had done, I thought ' Here I am ...in my early 70's and look what I have taken on!!'I thought about the strange events that lead up to Nanette's adoption. How, I had made an appointment to go to another refuge to see a German Shepherd.... a breed I have always loved and felt close to. It was all arranged with my friends to go the week before. Then I had the dream in which I heard a voice explaining that I had another 'mission'. Of course, in the morning I simply dismissed this experience as 'a dream' but when preparing to leave, I simply couldn't go....it felt all wrong and very uncomfortable!! I telephoned my friends.
Later that morning, a friend sent me a mail with an attachment showing the refuge at Brignoles, Southern France, some 2 hours from where I live. On opening the link, there she was... 'Nanette' the traumatised Basset d'Artois' and I knew instantly without a shadow of doubt that this was my 'mission'. I was to learn in the months that followed, the horrible truth that I was already beginning to suspect. I was told at the refuge that Nanette had been there for 2 years and that she had been taken away from her owner because of maltreatment.... I was to learn through observation and experience that she was subjected to the most cruel and sadistic behaviour that a human being could possibly sink to. The following is an account of our journey together... a journey that lead me into hell in an attempt to show her a way out of hell!!