My name is: Buttercup
I came from: China
Now I live in: London
My favourite things are: Chicken, cheese, squeaky balls, wrestling with my BFFs Roger and Oreo and cuddling with my humans
Follow me on Instagram: @buttercuptotherescue

Buttercup’s story

Having grown up with dogs (including one rescue dog), my main goal as an adult has been to be in a position in life (career, house, relationship, etc.) that would allow me to adopt my own. However, both Alex (my partner) and I have demanding jobs and busy lives, so we never really considered that we would be in a position to adopt, at least not anytime soon.

Cue the pandemic. While COVID has of course changed the lives of many for the worse, the silver lining has been the change in firms’ attitudes towards working from home. As a result, we realised that we are now able and willing to make the sacrifices that it would take to start our little family. So, we began applying to adopt dogs from various charities. Unfortunately, lockdown resulted in unprecedented levels of demand for dogs and UK charities were able to be very discerning as to what kind of owners they wanted: those with lots of rescue dog experience, private gardens and rural homes. Living in East London, this just wasn’t something we could provide, even though we knew in all other ways we would be the most dedicated and loving dog parents.

We were thrilled when we found out about Underdog through a friend. I immediately registered our details with the charity and one day, while scrolling through Instagram, I saw Buttercup’s photo alongside a caption urging people to apply to home her, as she was set to fly to the UK imminently but hadn’t yet found a permanent home. Straight away, I emailed Eve to let her know of our interest. As she had previously received our registration form, Eve was able to reply almost instantly and the whole application process was over in a matter of a couple of days.

When Buttercup first arrived in the UK from China, she was, as you’d expect, very tired and nervous. While we are not sure whether she had been mistreated by humans (she was found very young, for sale out of a bucket on the street) and know that the ladies at Slaughterhouse Survivors will have cared for her properly, we were conscious that she may have experienced trauma in some sense and had never lived in a home. But we loved her right away, more than we thought we could love anything or anyone, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. It took a lot of positive reinforcement training and a few calls with the lovely Sam at Underdog, but within a few weeks, Buttercup was one of the pack at the local park and was running around with the rest of them. She has come so far and I genuinely admire her every day for being so strong and loving. We are so glad that we took the time and effort to train her the right way, because it has really worked wonders and frankly didn’t even take that much time; she had it in her all along.

In addition to the obvious reference to the Powerpuff Girls, I chose the Instagram name @buttercuptotherescue because, although Buttercup is herself a rescue dog, in some ways I feel like she saved me and Alex. She has taught us to treasure quality time with our mini family, to spend more time in nature and to take better care of ourselves. 

If you are reading this as a prospective adopter: all I can say is, do it and do it properly. Your new dog will change your life in many ways and hopefully for a long time but overall it will be for the better. Do the reading, do the training, focus on positive reinforcement, and most importantly be patient. It will be worth it, I promise.

- Stephanie