Abbie Chatfield makes heartbreaking decision to rehome her puppy Daisy and begs her followers not to lash out at her
Abbie Chatfield has made the heartbreaking decision to rehome her almost one-year-old puppy Daisy.
The FBoy Island Australia host, 29, announced the sad news on her It’s a Lot podcast on Tuesday.
Abbie asked her fans and followers to “listen to the full episode before commenting” in the caption of the video she shared on Instagram from the episode’s recording.
“For today’s episode, I’m really nervous about recording. I’m afraid of the reaction because the whole situation makes me feel very sick,” she began.
“I’m going to be honest because I know the decision I made was the right decision for me and everyone involved.
“I had to rehome Daisy.”
Daisy is a one-year-old cocker spaniel that the media personality adopted into her family in April.
“I’m going to cry,” Abbie said as she began to explain her decision.
‘Daisy is my puppy. I have an older dog, Mr. Walter, who is eight, and I have Daisy, who will be one year old in about two weeks.”
Abbie Chatfield has made the heartbreaking decision to rehome her almost one-year-old puppy Daisy
Abbie Chatfield’s one-year-old puppy Daisy (pictured) is now living with a good friend’s sister in Brisbane
“I had to rehome her because of Walter and his traumas and the way they manifested. So before anyone comes into my DMs, I’ve been agonizing over this for six months.”
Walter suffers from anxiety caused by his previous owners.
“I tried my hardest and I never thought I would ever give up a dog,” Abbie continued on the podcast.
Abbie, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Sydney, said she has “literally tried everything” to find a way for her two dogs to get along.
Before she adopted Daisy, Abbie said she had never heard Walter growl.
‘Adam (my friend) calls him a sugarloaf. He’s a real dog,” Abbie said, adding that since she began her romance with the Peking Duk frontman, the relationship between her two fur babies had improved significantly.
The dogs have gotten along better since Abbie started her relationship with Australian musician Adam Hyde because they each have a human, but she said their inconsistent schedules are confusing for them.
Although Walter has never bitten Daisy or been overtly aggressive toward his sibling, Abbie says he fiercely guards his time with her.
“It got better when I started dating Adam because there were two of us and Daisy had Adam and Walter had me. “But once Adam was gone, I think Walter’s anxiety doubled because he got used to having Adam around,” she said.
‘Adam often went to perform and during those three days Daisy was sleeping in another room and Walter started having nightmares. It’s like he’s in shell shock.’
Abbie explained that dog trainers and her veterinarian had told her that Walter was “guarding” his owner, which is the type of behavior dogs exhibit when protecting their favorite ball or bone.
She said he would growl at Daisy and now regularly pins her down because he is jealous.
“I showered for ten minutes and he did it three times. She stands there completely still, shaking. She won’t hurt him.’
Abbie revealed the sad news on her It’s a Lot podcast this week, saying that as Daisy (pictured) got older and better behaved, Walter’s tolerance for her decreased.
Initially, Abbie believed that the problem would go away once Daisy grew out of her puppy stage and was trained to do some of her “annoying behaviors.”
This included ‘liquid defecating’ on a flokati carpet and destroying several benches.
“She got older and she was less annoying, but it seemed like his tolerance for her decreased as her behavior improved,” she said.
‘Afterwards I stupidly thought that having a puppy in the house would make him more playful and therefore happier.
‘Because he was very anxious, especially after the abusive relationship I went through last year, it made him very bad.’
“I love her more than anything and she has done nothing wrong,” Abbie continued.
She compared the relationship between the two dogs to that of King Charles and Princess Dianna.
“She’s Lady Di – and there’s a bad man living in the house – and that’s Walter,” Abbie joked fondly.
Abbie told how she moved to the Northern Rivers when she first adopted Daisy to give the duo time to settle into their new dynamic, but to no avail.
She had also sent Daisy to boarding school while Walter stayed home with a dog sitter during her travels to the US, and had hired a dog trainer and veterinarians for expert advice.
‘When she went to boarding school, he was melancholy. It’s like, ‘Do you like her or not?'” she said.
“Side note: If you’re thinking about getting a puppy, my answer is no.”
Unfortunately, Walter’s jealousy of Daisy isn’t something the TV and radio host said she could resolve, and she didn’t want to put either dog through the “trauma” of living together for years while she “figured it out.”
“I knew puppies were difficult and this is not at all the reason why she was given up,” she clarified after talking about how difficult it is to raise one.
‘I just don’t have the skills, capacity and understanding of dogs [to fix Walter and Daisy’s relaitonship]. I’m not a dog trainer.’
Abbie added that if she had been selfish, she would have kept both dogs.
‘If I had been completely selfish, I could have kept Daisy and gone for two separate 40-minute walks a day instead of one two-hour walk every day. I’m so sure I’m the best dog parent.”
Please don’t DM me because I’ve been crying about this for months since I started making the decision to get rid of her.
Abbie spent a significant portion of the 45-minute recording describing the lengths she goes to for her dogs, including putting together obstacle courses for their daily walks.
“The reason I don’t really drink anymore is because I don’t want to be hungover for Walter,” she said.
“I’d rather have them walk two hours to go creek hopping, beach hopping or park hopping.”
The decision has taken a huge emotional toll on the popular TV and radio presenter, who said that until the day she gave Daisy to her new owner, a few weeks ago now, she was ‘screaming and crying in the shower’.
“I raised her and went through the hardest parts of her puppyhood. I did all the hard work with her. She is the best dog.
‘She sleeps with her arms around my neck. I can’t train that trauma out of him and all I can do is give him a safe place to live.”
Abbie said she placed Daisy with a close friend’s sister in Brisbane, who drove to Sydney to pick her up.
The TV host and podcaster said she can’t train her 8-year-old dog Walter out of his trauma response to sharing his mother with a younger puppy
She packed all of Daisy’s things and made lists of all her food and activity preferences for her new owner.
“A few weeks later, I’m 100% sure this was the right decision for both dogs, but I’m heartbroken,” she wrote in the caption of her podcast post.
“I already feel like a failure, but I truly believe it would have been purely selfish to keep both of my angels in a home that they both only enjoy.”
Abbie’s 491,000 Instagram followers rushed to her comments to praise the decision and offer kind words of support and encouragement.