A Rehomed Soft coated wheaten terrier rescued from his dead owner’s house has gone on to win a CC at Three Counties.

Four year old Stevelyn A Fool Such As I With Purbelmo known as ‘Woody’ was one of three dogs found in the home of the late Vera Bellings at Hayling Island.

Ms Belling died suddenly of a heart attack last year. She was found in her bedroom, with one of her dogs who had also died. The three surviving dogs were rescued and later re-homed. Woody went to live with the owners of one of his puppies in Bristol, but the family already had two dogs and found having another was too much.

Beth and Phillip Knight who live locally heard about Woody. They had just lost their own dog in March and weren’t looking for another, but Beth said, ‘When we saw him we just fell in love with him’. The couple had previously always had rescue dogs and never owned a pedigree dog, nor attended shows before.

‘Obviously Woody had been through a lot of distress when he arrived and was very timid so we thought taking him to shows would be good socialisation for him.

‘It’s ironic we’ve had him just over a year and this has happened. It’s a wonderful tribute to Vera, I’m sure she would have been very proud, as we are,’ said Beth.

‘It’s spurred us on to enter more shows but more for enjoyment than anything else. We are complete novices - but we really enjoy it.’