A woman has shared the emotional moment her dog stopped at the exact place her senior pup was attacked two years earlier.
Claudia Bax, 47, lives in Belgium with her two Italian greyhounds, Alauda, 18, and 6-year-old Adeline, and as she told Newsweek: “My girls mean a lot to me.”
“Alauda was born at my house 18 years ago and never left my side,” she said.
“I’m chronically ill and have had tough times medically and she was my anchor. Always at my side, and even visited me at the hospital. I cannot explain how much she means to me as her presence has been my comfort for so long.”
After adopting rescue Adeline five years ago, the two dogs “bonded quickly,” and the trio made up the perfect family. But in 2022, while on a walk in the countryside, senior pup Alauda was viciously attacked.
The then-16-year-old dog was leashed but was mauled by a dog who “came running out of an unfenced yard,” breaking three of Alauda’s ribs and tearing her groin and leg. She miraculously survived, but it was a difficult road to recovery, with long vet stays, surgeries, and organ failure leading to blindness.
And while younger dog Adeline wasn’t attacked, she “saw everything happen and was barking her head off.” Since then, Adeline has had a “major setback” with reactivity training. As Bax described it: “When dogs approach, she goes into major protection mode. Loudly.”
Now Bax has shown the lasting impact the incident has had on Adeline, in a moving post to her Instagram page @jewel_iggies. Shared in August, with over 150,000 views, it shows Adeline on a country path, standing stock-still and staring down a side road before looking protectively at her owner.
She wrote on the clip: “Returning to the place my senior dog got attacked 2 years ago. The other one who witnessed it still remembers.”
Bax explained to Newsweek it took almost two years for her to return to that path, and she still feels panicked. And when they crossed by it and she saw her dog “stop and then look at me, it hit me again.”
“I’m not sure if it was her remembering, but her looking into the road and then checking in with me, really grabbed me,” she said.
“I got a bit emotional. We didn’t walk down the actual path, but near it…still gave me a sense of accomplishment, into the step of healing. This is a trauma all three of us still carry.”
Instagram users were just as emotional, with one commenter praising the “baby steps,” calling the woman and her dog “so brave.”
“Makes me feel so sick knowing this happened to her,” another said, adding: “What a superstar she really is.”
“My heart still hurts that that happened,” one fan wrote.
Bax told Newsweek she grew up with the sighthound breed, affectionately calling her Italian greyhounds her “iggies.”
The American Kennel Club describes the toy breed as swift and hardy, despite their sleek and delicate appearance. In 2023, it was 62nd on the AKC’s list of the most popular breeds in America.
“They’re my extended limbs. I don’t know how to live without them in my life as I have never experienced a life without them,” Bax told Newsweek. “And will always have them in my life.”
“Iggies are little mischievous clowns, very sensitive, and bring so much loyalty and love,” she said. “They’re like potato chips, you can never have just one.”
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