From Romania with Love for stray Zani

Technical services officer Dave Love, based at Whittington Barracks, near Lichfield, fell in love with the scruffy stray and arranged for it to be ferried to his home in Cheslyn Hay.

He spotted the pup at the end of a week-long trip with four colleagues to the east European country to raise £20,000 for Wolverhampton's Compton Hospice.

He and wife Kate, aged 37, who accompanied him, have had to fork out for emergency surgery, injections and other vet's bills as well as food and lodgings while they organised his passage to the UK.

But the expense and the two-month wait to get him back was worth it, they say, after the animal was delivered on Sunday to all-round delight, not least from the new arrival himself who has been named Zani after Zarneshi, the village where he was found.

Dave, 42, had seen the dog crawl out from under an abandoned van, dehydrated in the 30C temperatures and starving.

He bribed the minibus driver to allow the dog on board and as soon as they got back to their hotel, the Loves took him by taxi to the nearest vet.

They were told that the emaciated mongrel, then six weeks old, had an infected tail and would be dead within days without an operation. Having already fallen for the pup, the couple agreed to fund his surgery and paid for his other welfare needs while they looked for a way to get him to the UK.

Father-of-two Dave says: "We couldn't have let him die. Amazingly we found a company that specialises in bringing unwanted dogs from Romania to this country. It seems it's a particular problem over there because of the number of dogs bred to protect sheep from wild bears.

"People's reactions have been funny because it's normally child orphans that are associated with Romania. Some people think we're mad but once we'd found him we couldn't part with him."

Dave took a day off work yesterday to welcome Zani while Kate, who retired from her fundraising job at Compton Hospice on Friday, was also there to help their canine guest bed in.

Zani is now showing no signs of the necrosis, a progressive deterioration and collapse of the thigh bone, which medics in Romania had diagnosed.

The condition is a painful and crippling disease which causes the bone to die. Young dogs aged five to eight months are particularly prone.

"We were left in no doubt by the vet that he had two days to live at the most without an immediate operation," said Dave.

The couple's sons, 15-year-old Alex and Ben, aged nine, are thrilled by the new addition, described as a cross between a sheepdog and a rottweiler. "They've been so looking forward to his arrival," said Dave. "We had a boxer called Tessa for 10-and-a-half years and when she passed away eight years ago it was such a loss for me.

"I decided I couldn't go through that again.

"But funnily enough, in the days before we left on the trip Katie and I had been talking about having a dog.

"She had won a massive box of dog treats in a tombola from about 60 prizes, it was just so random.

"I had no other thought in Romania than relieving this poor animal from its pain.

"But there was a moment at the vet's in Romania when Katie and I looked at each other, and that was it. It felt like fate had played a bit of a hand." Their black, white and tan pup has adjusted brilliantly to his new surroundings and appears right at home with the British climate.

Dave said: "He's fitted in straight away. He spends a lot of time lying at my feet. Romanian sheepdogs are stable and loyal breeds. We think he'll settle in fine."

And he revealed it isn't the first time that the family has come to the aid of a distressed animal.

Six years ago they took in a rabbit found abandoned beside a lamp post outside their house.

That time they paid a whopping £1,200 to nurse it back to health.

"By comparison, you could say this one's cheap," said Dave.