‘I had my dog put down when I fell pregnant’

We welcomed our little baby Vizsla, named Coolio, into our family in August 2015. He was the cutest little thing, with his wrinkly face and massive paws, and immediately I was in love.

We were determined to do everything right, from Blake (my husband) getting up every hour during the night to let him out to go to the toilet, to feeding him a raw diet and most importantly ensuring that he was taken on so many adventures with us. Coolio became part of our family, and there weren’t many places that we wouldn’t take him.

Another time my dad, affectionately known to Coolio as “Papa Bear” was over helping us fix things around the house. When dad was leaving we were standing at the front door saying goodbye and Coolio lunged and tried to bite him, completely unprovoked.

Even writing this, I can’t believe we let this go on for as long as we did. If this was someone else’s story I would be saying, “How could you not have done something sooner, he’s dangerous!”