Hugo was Born on Xmas day and religous or not he was my personal Jesus - Jan 2012 his heart failed and he was given 1-2 months to live.

With the help of Royal Vetinerary College and in particular a very special lady Julia Sargent who was his specialist that 1 month become 12, What Hugo really needed was a new heart and if anyone deserved one he did for all the dogs in the world he was the biggest gentleist most loving person you would ever meet - yes I did say person.

His story before this will bring tears to any reader most who know me or my company will know it but for the rest of the world who's heart he never touched here is the untold story....

Hugo The untold Story

Most have heard the saying that dogs are like their owners, with my dog Hugo 
That may be way to close to the truth.

From the day I saw Turner and hooch I always wanted a Dogue de Bordeaux not just any one the more I learnt about the breed there was a look, a bloodline which gave a very dopey personality that 
Gradually went to form the dream of what my baby would be.


Hugo was that dream after looking for over a year and nothing really coming close to my dream Hugo was love at first sight, He had no KC registration but his features were Temple Felson (European Champion sadly no longer with us) a beauty in every sense of the word we were bonded father and son from the second we saw each other. Born on Xmas day he may well have been the 2nd coming for me!


And soon to be named Hugo at 10 weeks came home with me a few weeks later upon taking him to the vets for his 2nd injection I was told he had a heart murmur, It was quite bad and that by the time he would be 2 or 3 he would have sever breathing problems and would not be with me much more after.

I returned home in tears day after day every time I Looked at my baby I cried more, I hated the world that had bought me my dream in the shape of Hugo and was now so terribly going to take him away so quickly from me. I prayed to save my Baby, I did not care take the problem from Hugo and give it to me, Just let him live.

4 Months later I decided to get Hugo a girlfriend I did not have time to seek perfection so I just went for best bloodlines and beautiful features and she came at a price around 3x of Hugo!


So it seemed when Chanel had her injections a good time to have Hugo checked again, the Vet listened and had a puzzled strange look on her face I was ready to start crying as feared the worse, She then asked for him to come back a few days later which I did. It was not unusual for minor murmurs in puppies to clear up but he was past that age before and had a very bad one, So it could only be described as a miracle that he now had no sign of it at all.



I returned home the happiest person in the world God was thanked so many times for this miracle
That he must have been bored of hearing it! 

Over the next few months I occasionally felt like I was about to have a heart attack not that I knew what that felt like but was a funny sensation that only lasted a second and left you with a feeling like being dropped from a fast roller coaster. 
It was easy to dismiss as nothing as only happened a few times but was at home one day when it happened again, The next thing I knew was I woke up in Intensive Care 

Later putting the pieces back together I lived in the countryside at the time, And worked mostly from home in a custom office in the Annexe of the House rather the commute to London daily. 

I had Collapsed on the floor Hugo and Chanel were always in the office with me in fact they had always gone almost everywhere except abroad with me. 
My neighbour was a mechanic who worked from home and was always in the front of his house Hugo had jumped through a window and almost dragged him back to the house where I was rushed to hospital.

I had an irregular heartbeat that was all over the place, after a week in hospital with me grimacing as doctors talked about some kind of electric shock treatment and all kinds of nasty tests I was relieved that I responded to tablets that kept my heart doing normal stuff.

I had been shown scans of my heart and understood what was wrong and what the meds done to keep things right and I could kind of see an irony then that my tears and prayers of ‘take it from him and give it to me’ had been followed a bit too closely and wondered if God had a sense of humour as bizarre as mine!

But I was alive Hugo was too so if a couple of tablets a day was the price of this then no big deal.
It was on annual booster visit to a different vet as I had moved back to London that the vets gave prognosis that the murmur had returned to Hugo Not apparently life threatening but there and was told he might have this and that difficulty later on, Hugo had never been that active, like his owner mention the word walkies and he would roll on his back and refuse to move.

My theory was with love and keeping him a tiny under the overweight appearance that Dogue owners seem to love that he would be with me for ever. 

And so the years went on when Hugo was 4 years old I met Svetlana who was originally from Russia where
She was a veterinary surgeon who had moved to the UK where her 9 years of experience and 10 years at vet med school where wasted as the UK only recognised people who had qualified in the EU,USA or AU later, It meant some of the ex-soviet territories that had since declared independence and where now in the EU could practice but she could not. 

This did not stop her love for animals as she became head of animal welfare for Harrods, and worked alongside vets voluntarily at the PDSA and RSPCA charities. 

Later she opened her own dog and pet grooming salon where she is regarded as setting the highest standard in the industry and has clients in the Royal Family, show biz world as well as ex now Harrods owner and father to Dodi who died with Diana Mohammed AL fayed.
So we never would have met if it was not for Hugo and Chanel, I had moved back to london and looking for grooming for them bought us together.

Fast forward 2 years the happily ever after fairy-tale was continuing Hugo had just seen his 6th birthday and was doing a great Job of proving everybody wrong he loved nothing more than sitting under my desk all day and following me here there and everywhere. 
It was January 2012 something disturbed Hugo and Chanel maybe a bird having the cheek to land in the garden maybe children playing football but as usual the 2 went running down the garden together ready to take on the world in their game of lets guard Daddy,

1 minute later they both came back in the house I looked at Hugo and almost the same second his legs collapsed apart and he dropped to the floor motionless, I ran to him and screamed for Svetlana who was upstairs, he was not breathing he lay still and lifeless Svetlana rushed into the room to see what was happening, I was in tears It will be his heart I cried.
With me helplessly watching in complete melt down Svetlana was giving him CPR I was crying but begging him not to leave us, I saw my whole world ending in a single second , It was like something out of a movie like the end of turner and hooch when Hooch took the bullet to save his dad.

But this was not a movie and Hugo came back to us his breathing started and tears of sadness and panic turned to tears of Joy, I was not going to take him to the vet emergency hospital as a bad experience in the past told me not to leave him, Instead I stayed up all night with him until we could take him to a vet friends of Svetlana’s who she partnered with and we trusted totally the next morning.

Hugo the Night he collapsed



Weak Pulse, Murmur and racking heartbeat he wanted to try him on a new medication which although expensive I hoped would be what he needed to keep him with us.

The following week I probably had 2 hours sleep I was up with him most nights and if I went to bed I was listening for any sound from Chanel to say that something was wrong. Even walking him 50 feet and it was like he was not getting enough oxygen and was panting and his heart was going crazy.
It was almost a week when after day after day of walking him down the garden so he did not run out or in the house that he ran off ahead of me and collapsed again. 



This time he had just fainted he came back I was at the stage where I was looking at every possible option in the world to save him, A heart Transplant for a dog In UK/USA is almost unheard of as a living donor needs to be found, but did not stop me from looking at places that would do it,

Then It was flying him to west coast USA where they were installing pace makers in dogs, I was in a blind panic whatever it took I would do it, Hugo was even more attached to me than ever he knew something was not right in him every time he went to the vets Chanel would be in total panic was he going to come back, I was not just searching for a solution for my and hugo’s salvation I knew if hugo left us Chanel would never recover at such a close lose either.

It was then we were referred not to America or any other exotic location in the world but the Royal Veterinary College Potters Bar http://www.rvc.ac.uk/qmh/index.cfm

Unknown to me now regarded as one of the most advanced and largest in the World the site is actually 2 miles long and a mile wide as they have a horse and wild animal section as well, but more importantly has an incredible small animal heart unit. 
This is run on a non profit making business.
Hugo went on to Cardiac Failure in large dogs a usual life expectancy of 1-2 months with his severity but with RVC and lots of love and his passion for life he went on to have the best year of his life before the enevitable caught up. 

I hope helping to raise these funds in Hugo's name will goto the cardiac dept which research helps dogs and cats round the world with heart problems - maybe 1 day the heart transplant they deserve will not just be talk