For a while we talked about setting up a charity in tribute to our special girls. In our dreams we would win the lottery and be able to make grants to animal rescue charities to cover the vet bills for old and battered critters. Well, the lottery win still hasn't happened and we began to think that this was something we were going to have to make happen ourselves. And so STAR was born.

The work we do is in tribute to Meg and Fraggle. Everything down to our name and the symbols and colours on this website and our literature are a tribute to them.

Fraggle came to live with us in June 2006 from Furry Friends. She was 14 years old and her family no longer wanted her because she had (allegedly) snapped at their grandchildren. She arrived with nothing but a purple blanket to her name and, for the first few days, she clung to that blanket in her sadness and confusion. As a result purple is Fraggle's colour so the purple you see on the website is a tribute to her. Fraggle was old, ugly and grumpy and we adored her. She was your typical old lady terrier really, she thought the world revolved around her and we were all sent here to do her bidding. If you picked her up or tried to make her do something she didn't want to she grumbled at you, earning her the nickname Grunty Runty. For the first two weeks she hated the other dogs but didn't let the fact that she was half their size bother her. She had them all put well and truly in their places. But it was all an act really. Fraggle was in fact full of fun, very playful and wonderfully affectionate. She often had us in stitches with her funny ways and attempts to look big and tough. In March 2007 Fraggle was taken very ill with a virus which struck her hard and fast. Before we even knew what was happening she was on a drip and then she was gone. 10:02pm Tuesday 6th March 2007. I'll never forget it. The call from the vet to say she had gone. People seemed to think that because she hadn't been here very long it wouldn't be as bad. For months I couldn't even look at a picture of her it hurt so much. At the time there were two songs around which made us think of her. One was "Shine" by Take That and the other was "Lil Star" by Kelis. The symbol which came to represent Fraggle was therefore a Star and this word in our name and the images of stars on the website are a tribute to her. We also made the official founding date of STAR 6th March 2008, the first anniversary of her death, in tribute.

Meg came to live with us on the 4th December 2004 from Wiccaweys. She arrived an elderly, slightly battered looking collie who had been found as a stray and never claimed. We expected a quiet little old lady and, for a few days, that's what we had. Then she started to feel better and her true colours shone through. Meg (aka Meggie Moo) turned out to be a very naughty, playful, cheeky little dog with lots of life left in her. The other dogs actually refused to play with her because she played too rough! Nothing really prepared us for the special place an oldie takes over in your heart. We worshipped Moo with a love that neither of us had ever felt before. When she arrived Moo had various lumps and bumps which we had removed and analysed. We knew two were cancerous but we'd hoped the vet had managed to remove enough to prevent a regrowth. But in March 2006 Moo started to slow down. We thought it was just arthritis but tests showed that the cancer had spread and we were given just a couple of weeks left with her. We set about making those weeks as special as we could and we spoilt her rotten. We also had a reading done with an animal communicator which was very enlightening. One of the things that came through in the reading was "Meg would like to look like the sunshine" and an image of her surrounded by yellow flowers. So yellow flowers are Moo's thing, her way of communicating with us. So the sunflowers you see on the website are in tribute to her. Also from the reading, we were given a line from a Smith's song'There is a light that never goes out'. We felt very much that Meg was such a bright light that she simply had to carry on existing somewhere. And so the word 'light' in our name is in tribute to Moo.

Our enduring love for these two special dogs is what drives us today. Without the passion of small independent rescue organisations we would never have known these two. They ignored the fact that these dogs were old and ill or temperamental and gave them a second chance. Where some big charities would have euthanased them as unhomeable, they treated them the same as the cute little puppy and made sure they had somewhere to live out their lives. We want to do the same for the animals we deal with and hopefully enable them to find the happiness Meg and Fraggle found with us and bring the joy they brought into our lives into someone elses.