My dog Blue: I thought I was rescuing him, but he was rescuing me

Tracy Pepper and her therapy dog Blue. Photo/Andrew Warner

Tracy Pepper thought she was rescuing her dog, but it turned out he rescued her.

The Tauranga woman homed Blue, the staffy-huntaway cross, after he was allegedly being bred as a fighting dog.

"When I got him at 4 months old he just had no personality at all," Miss Pepper said.

"He was not traumatised but he was really vacant.

"He did not have any interaction with humans really. It was almost like he just knew that his destiny was going to be his life."

Miss Pepper gave him a new life, and a new home. And Blue gave her a new found confidence.

The 42-year-old woman broke her wrist last year and became depressed after she was not able to work and her future as a massage therapist became unknown.

"When I got him I suffered from anxiety," she said. "When I get anxious, I have a hard time interacting with other people.

"It is really hard to get out of the house, you do not feel like you are the best company so you just hide away."

But walking Blue helped get Miss Pepper get back on her feet.

"I found I was comforted when I was with him," she said. "I thought I was rescuing him but really he was rescuing me."

At first it was meant to be temporary, but Miss Pepper grew to love Blue and decided to keep him.

"I have had Blue for about a year and a half. I never expected to have a dog. I am not a dog person, I am a cat person.

"But within a couple of days I was in love with him."

Because Miss Pepper works with elderly patients and sometimes travels to rest homes for her job, she trained Blue to become a therapy dog.

"When I got him as a puppy, I had to take him with me to work. He just naturally became a therapy dog."

She said Blue's energy and presence helped with the rehabilitation of some of her dementia and stroke patients.

"He just has presence and he commands a room. it just changes the dementia patients when he walks into a room," Miss Pepper said.

"It is completely different to when a human walks into a room, they don't really respond but as soon as Blue comes in, he lights up eyes.

"He just has this gentleness and this natural therapy ability. He senses when people are feeling anxious."

Miss Pepper said Blue also had a special connection with animals, particularly a donkey named Burke.

Blue met Burke at an animal rescue farm in Te Puke, where the dog sometimes stays when Miss Pepper goes on holiday.

"Burke had been self-harming because he is anxious," said Miss Pepper. "Burke wants to be a horse but the horses will not accept him. He just does not fit in.

"Because he feels rejection from the other horses, he has a tendency to fling himself at the fence and to rub himself really hard. It is an anxious habit and he rubs the skin raw."

The donkey was put in solitary confinement while his skin healed.

"I took Burke out of solitary confinement, I brushed him, I did some healing on him, and gave him a good massage and we decided to take him for a walk."

But Blue grabbed the lead and wanted to walk the donkey.

"I thought it was just a game at first but the next thing I knew Blue just wanted to walk Burke and the crazy thing was the donkey let Blue walk him."

The 18 month old dog also has its own 'Blue Pepper' Facebook page.

Miss Pepper lives alone and uses the page to post videos of Blue and reach out to fellow dog lovers to walk or home Blue when she goes on holiday.

"A lot of people want to help out," she said.