Rescuing Blondie, My Saluki Sidekick

I was going through one of the hardest points in my life, although I couldn’t be more grateful for it now. I had just had quite the invasive surgery on my shoulder, and I was instructed to stay in bed for weeks of recovery – every time I got up would risk making the surgery a failure.

Needless to say, I was miserable after day one, and losing the will to live by the end of the first week.

I had lost my dogs a few years earlier which left a hole in my heart, so I spent this time doing what every dog lover without a dog does, scoured the internet looking at dogs with no intention of actually getting one. That is until I checked Battersea’s website and saw Blondie, a 1.5-year-old Saluki mix, and it was love at first sight.

As soon as I was able, I went down to Battersea Old Windsor to meet Blondie, my arm still in a sling, and she was as beautiful as her photos, although they conveniently didn’t mention how crazy she was!

I had only ever owned a border collie and a westie, so I was caught off guard as she showed off her best zoomies in a room no bigger than a small office.

They asked me if I was feeling brave enough to walk her to which the answer was a hell yes, and she won me over even more by doing a somersault into the only patch of wet mud on site 😂

She was perfect! She didn’t know it at the time, but she had just found her forever home. I wanted to take her home that day, but she came in as a stray and had some health issues which needed to be cleared by their vet before they could let me take her.

I took her home with me just a week later, right before the UK went into its first covid lockdown, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Then of course I had to get used to living with a sighthound.