Giving a dog the greatest possible final days requires a community, but the effort isn’t necessarily as difficult as it might appear. Sometimes the people who care for a dying dog join together to create a moment that is so happy that all difficulties are momentarily forgotten and all that is left is the puppy’s ear-to-ear grin.
That’s exactly what occurred when Jenny Leech, a seasoned hospice foster parent, saw that Huxley, one of her newest fosters, had a tennis ball obsession. A simple search to get Huxley’s favorite toy quickly developed into the most joyous surprise imaginable for the dog who had been through so much loss recently.
Huxley formerly resided on a farm with his elderly owner before coming into Leech’s care. Huxley was given to BAARK Dog Rescue by family members when his owner passed away.
After clearing Huxley for foster care, a volunteer for BAARK posted his picture online with a description that read: “Huxley doesn’t see or hear too well and moves slowly,” noting that he only had three legs as a result of an accident he’d survived as a puppy.
Leech caught wind of the post and instantly fell in love with the gray-muzzled dog, despite his condition. “[The rescue] said, ‘He looks like he’s in really bad shape,’” Leech told The Dodo. “I said, ‘He’s perfect.’”
Leech welcomed Huxley into her home just a few days after seeing the post and quickly learned that he was even sicker than she’d expected. Additional tests confirmed her fears that Huxley was suffering from lung cancer.
As soon as he was diagnosed with cancer, Leech made sure that his everyday life was as comfortable as possible. She expected him to be slowed down by his arthritis, but, to her surprise, Huxley’s puppy spirit grew stronger every day.
Then one day, Huxley laid eyes on a tennis ball, and his puppy energy overflowed.
Huxley’s obsession with tennis balls was discovered “kind of by accident,” Leech said, after her toddler grandson accidentally initiated a game of fetch with him. “[My grandson] found a tennis ball, and Huxley immediately just took to it,” Leech said. “I don’t know if he had ever played fetch, but we [could see] how much he was loving it.”
After realizing that Huxley’s demeanor became more puppy-like the second he laid eyes on a single tennis ball, Leech reached out to her local racket club to see if they would donate a few more for him.
Not only was the racket club more than happy to gather up a bunch of tennis balls for Huxley, but they also went out of their way to make the moment extra special for him, too.
“The person who arranged it took her lunch hour to gather all of the tennis balls around the club and put them on the lawn just for him,” Leech said.
When Leech and her family arrived with Huxley to pick up the tennis balls, the lovable senior dog was so excited to greet the people at the club that he almost didn’t notice the sea of tennis balls at his paws.
“And then all of the sudden, he realized and his nose went to the ground,” Leech said.
The abundance of tennis balls initially overwhelmed Huxley, but as he sat down and we began tossing them in the air, he “liked it,” according to Leech. He would essentially extend his neck to catch them out of the air.
Huxley soon fully committed to his tennis ball surprise. Leech stated that “he did not want to quit.”
Huxley was able to bring all of the tennis balls home with him at the end of his surprise and continues to exude the most youthful puppy energy whenever he plays with them at home. In addition to his obsession with fetch, Huxley has developed a love for swimming. “He’s a retriever at heart, for sure,” Leech said.
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