24/08/2026
Goodbye our sweet Poppy 💔🐐
I honestly don’t really know how to write this one because Poppy was so, so loved. She was one of those animals who just made Bella’s Half Way Home what it is, and she was probably one of the animals who gave us the most laughs.
Poppy was just… Poppy 😂
She would headbutt absolutely anything she could. Fences, buckets, gates, people if you weren’t paying enough attention 😂 She would snort and blow raspberries at anyone new who came over to say hello, and then suddenly she’d be jumping and bounding around the field like a little puppy.
She was an absolute pain in the bum sometimes and we loved every single bit of her for it.
Over the last few months we had noticed our girl slowing down. She was getting older, she’d been through a very harsh winter and a harsh summer, and she just wasn’t quite as full of beans as she used to be.
But this morning at half past eight, Poppy was still happily munching away.
Then at around nine o’clock she was found lying down, fast asleep. She had simply gone to sleep and never woke back up.
And as absolutely heartbroken as we are, there is some comfort in knowing that she doesn’t appear to have suffered. She was eating, she lay herself down, and our beautiful girl just quietly went to sleep. 💔
I will never ever forget when she first came to us. I was lying in the field sunbathing with my sunglasses on when I suddenly felt this warm air on my forehead. Before I even had chance to work out what was happening… DUFF. 😂
My sunglasses were broken, the lens had popped straight out and there was Poppy, looking completely pleased with herself.
And honestly, we never told her off. You couldn’t. That was just Poppy.
She broke things. She headbutted fences. She caused chaos. She made us swear. She made us laugh until we cried.
And we would take every single broken fence, every broken pair of sunglasses and every bit of chaos all over again in a heartbeat if it meant we got to have her back.
Even on the days when everything felt rubbish, when we were tired, sad, stressed and really couldn’t be bothered with Poppy and her dramatic behaviour… there she was. And somehow she would make you laugh anyway.
That is what I’m going to miss so much.
Her poor sister Fifi is going to miss her terribly too. We will do absolutely everything we can to make sure Fifi and Millie are happy and have each other, but there is going to be a huge Poppy-shaped hole here now.
She was loved. Properly, completely loved. By us, by our volunteers and by so many of you who have followed her life here.
I think this little quote sums our girl up perfectly:
“How lucky are we to have loved someone who makes saying goodbye so hard.” 🤍
Because that’s exactly it.
The pain of losing her is horrible, but I wouldn’t swap one second of having her here to avoid feeling it.
Thank you Poppy, for the laughs, the headbutts, the raspberries, the broken fences, the chaos and all of the memories.
We would do it all again.
Every. Single. Bit.
Sleep tight our beautiful, ridiculous girl.
Rest in peace Poppy. You really were one of a kind. 💔🌈🐐
