Gizmo’s story

Gizmo is the oldest of the Dog Hollow pack but you could be forgiven for thinking he is much younger than 12 due to his lack of grey hair and effervescent attitude to life. He is also Evee’s ‘husband’ and is a doting other half to his lady, reminding one of those 1970’s sitcoms. She decides and he does. Despite being only a couple of kilos and missing most of his teeth, he is still up for a good old barkfest at the gate when the Shepherds decide to show the neighbourhood who’s in charge.

Unlike most of the pack, the decision to adopt Gizmo was not mine, Tony made it clear from the day I bought him home that this little guy was going nowhere. It was a manly bond at first sight. Tony adored his little buddy and the feeling was mutual, I rarely got a look in unless it was feeding time. The hashtag, small but mighty, is often used to describe our Giz and is well-suited. He has overcome a lot to get to the feisty Miniature Yorkie we know.

Gizmo was not born on the streets or discarded in the way that see most rescue dogs, in fact when I met him he was living in a very posh flat in Chelsea. I had been called for a behaviour consultation by the wealthy grand-daughter of a very well-known perfume house to help with her new puppy’s toilet training. To cut a long story short, here was this tiny yearling in a 7th floor flat with no access to the outside world unless someone was going to take him down to the green space below yet was expected to hold his bladder whilst his owner went out for the whole day. And when she did take him out, he was stuffed into what one would call, a puppy handbag. My heart went out to this little creature who had greeted me at the door with a toy and ‘let’s play’ attitude – something he still does even now. Those who know Yorkies will champion their intelligence and I am certainly one of them, quick to learn and always enthusiastic. Yet his new owner was obsessed with his little pee problem to which I replied, “try going through your whole day without be able to use the loo”. I didn’t mention, cream carpets and puppies are never going to be symbiotic. After a week or so I got a call from the above to say she was moving to Paris and couldn’t take the puppy with her, could I find a home? In the summer of 2009, I took the little one year old wonder home. Tony had decided.

Like Evee, Gizmo has had his fair share of traumas. It wasn’t until a few months later that I discovered that Gizmo had more than likely been bought at Harrods and had been cursed with tummy problems. This on its own would have made toilet training difficult but the added ‘agoraphobia’ due to him only ever seeing the outside world through a slit in a handbag made it that much harder. Having been cursed with the name of a perfume (I sort of promised the owner I would keep it but Tony changed it thank God), the ex-Jicky, now Gizmo had to learn to conquer life outdoors because his new ‘wife’ told him what to do and where to do it. He followed her from the moment he met her and she showed him the way (At this point I shall add a hilarious question from a client some years ago in reference to her Yorkie’s dislike of the rain, “But why doesn’t he like the rain, he’s from Yorkshire!”). Gizmo’s tummy problems became a bone of contention with his then pet insurance company several years later when he got a bit of carrot stuck in his oesophagus and almost choked to death. The battle between the Royal Veterinary College plus the chief veterinary nurse at Kynance (Jenn Donaldson I owe you) versus this ridiculous so-called insurer as to who should pay the bill was finally won by us. Giardia as a pup does not make a dog choke on a carrot. To this day, I don’t insure my dogs. I took advice from the late great Keith Butt and have a credit card solely for their crisis’.

When we first adopted Gizmo, he had a very short coat clip and because he was so scared of the outdoors, I decided to grow it longer to give him a bit of security (the whole Samson thing). He kept that whole Merlin vibe going for a good decade until we moved to France. After the first day of whizzing around L’Horte, I realised that countryside and flowing locks were not going to work so I clipped him back to the puppy look again and wow! He looks like a new man.

Like all my dogs, it is simply too difficult to describe him in a few words. Gizmo is forever young. He sees the whole glass as full, even when the chips are down. He is also incredibly intelligent and loves to please everyone around him. More often than not, friends and family comment on how, despite their preference for big dogs, they would happily smuggle him home. Gizmo still greats me at the door with an old tissue or a faded bit of plant to say hello – Evee has yet to teach him about what gifts are actually considered romantic but hey I’m a sucker for the thought. And he talks. A lot. Gizmo will chatter to you for hours if you give him the soapbox, at least until Evee walks in that is. He has boundless energy when the rest of the pack are at their craziest but is also equally happy curling up with Evee on my pillow. That’s our Gizmo