Joshie the £20,000 Terrier

Meet Joshie the £20,000 terrier.

He limped into Battersea with a deformed paw and was diagnosed a” behavioural nightmare”. It took days to get a collar and lead on him and he seemed unrehomable.

However, Joshie had one thing going for him, Wendy, the Home’s Fostering Co-ordinator.

Away from the kennels, he was a different character and after a live in assessment, Wendy adopted Joshie.

Unfortunately, it was nearly three months before he could go home; Joshie had a digit removed from his paw and “undropped” testicles removed from his stomach. He then developed kennel cough which was so severe that five years on he still sounds like a heavy smoker.

Then after a dramatic loss of fur, he was tested for Cushing’s disease but the results were border line. However the diabetes test came back positive and treatment involved two insulin injections a day. After another bout of illness he had a second Cushing’s test, again it was border line but he’d contracted an ecoli infection that took nine months, an intravenous drip and four lots of antibiotics to cure him. A third Cushing’s test after Joshie went nearly bald came back positive.

Thankfully Josh has pet insurance, which is just as well because his vets have renamed him “monthly wages”.

Despite his ills, Joshie is a happy, little dog and with help from his Jack Russell pal Teddy, he copes well with his recent blindness. He is the furry proof that insurance, sometimes actually pays and love knows no bounds.