Happy endings

Just got this wonderful email...

Dear Mrs Cuddy


We thank you for the rectification on your site regarding the stay of the dogs from the Sullivan family in our animal hotel.

The Sullivan family says that they do love their dogs. As you will know, only loving dogs is not enough.
 
Taking care of them is even more important, e.g. food, shots, medical bills, etc.
If the Sullivan family thinks that they will manage this in the nearby future, we will again give them the benefit of the doubt.

After thorough consideration, we came to the following conclusion:

-          we will pass the dogs on to the Sullivan family;
-          we request to ship the dogs to the UK immediately and they should not stay elsewhere in between;
-          we request to collect the dogs before January 20th 2010.

We have enjoyed taking care off these animals the last six months. The love they gave us was enough.

Please let us know the exact date and time the dogs will be collected.

Awaiting your early reply,

With kind regards,

Bas and Petra Horsten

I have to say that a wonderful lady who just wants to be known as Emily played an enormous part in making this all happen. Emily was the one who stepped in to loan the Sullivans the rest of the money. She was determined to resolve this problem and after reading Wendy's email below and talking to her these last few days she was able to convince Bas and Petra that these dogs should indeed be with their family.

The Sullivans sent Emily and I this email last night...

OMG no, we have never have had any intentions of breeding from the dogs. In any case Pop(the Border Collie - now 10 years old)'s litter brother Jazz sufferred from epilepsy, which we discovered is further back in their lines.

We have NEVER said anywhere that these people were not kind and loving people, or that they had not looked after our dogs well. In fact, I have always stated quite openly that we have had no doubts whatsoever about our dogs' welfare whilst in these people's care. The only fears we have ever had was in the final email, where we had the deadline for payment. If we had ever had the slightest doubt we would never have left them there. On the blogs it is stated they had been well cared for. They have only been there since 5th July, which is only six months not one year as is stated in his email. Also we have never said that they had previously had any animal put to sleep.
They were exceptionally kind and discounted the bill for us, for which we cannot express our gratitude enough. We have already told them that they would not lose a cent because of this, that we will pay ALL of the bill that was originally agreed upon. We still stand by that, it will take time but they will be paid in full.
He mentions the "benches" which are actually cages which people who show dogs use at the championship shows. These are only used in the car for safety when we travel. They are quite adequate for medium and small size dog together for a couple of hours travel. When we use these they are exercised at regular intervals (every 1.5 - 2 hours). This is a far safer way for them to travel, than being loose in the car. These cages are in extremely good condition. They have a separate soil tray so if a dog gets caught short they do not have to lay in it. From memory each cage measures approximately 48" x 30" x 33" (122cm x 77cm x 84cm). 
Being parted from our dogs for six months has been so very hard, and now after so many wonderfully kind hearted people have helped us we hear he may still not return our dogs to our family. Our dogs are not just pets, they are family members. They are loved equally and missed more than we can put into words. When our youngest daughter went to work this morning, her parting words were "this is the beginning of a better life mum, we get our dogs back and will be able to repay peoples kindness". We always have and always will take great care with our dogs. We love them and they love us, that will never change. They don't deserve to be split up from each other and rehomed with strangers when they have a loving family here with us. Our dogs are our life..without them there is a big void that cannot be filled.
We are not giving up hope that he will honour his agreement to return our dogs on receipt of the money. We believe he is an honourable man, and Pop, Comet, Jess and Meg deserve to be with us for the rest of their lives. Pop is 10 years old and has been a member of our family since he was 12 weeks old. We won't give up on him or Comet, Jess and Meg, we just love them too much to do that.
Beverley, I don't know what else I can say to make him understand how much we love our dogs. But I have to ask, how can he be 100% certain that someone else would treat them as well or better than we do, and they certainly couldn't love them any more than we do. I hope this makes some sense, we are all in pieces here.

Thank goodness we have a happy ending. Wendy sounded so terribly depressed last night.

Well done Emily and thank you to all those who helped raised the funds so quickly and thank you Bas and Petra for looking after the dogs so well. I'm sure a lot was lost in translation, but thanks to Emily's efforts all sides are now in agreement and the dogs are coming home.
I am so looking forward to meeting the wonderful dogs and the people involved in this amazing story.