"When I'm [doing] poorly, they'll come and lay beside me in the bed," said Gordon Sanderson, who said his dogs Poppy and Harvey comforted him in grief.
This double amputee has his two Dalmatians to thank for helping him cope with the loss of his legs — so he had his prosthetics fashioned after his beloved dogs.
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Gordon Sanderson, 60, of northeast England, told InsideEdition.com he was flipping through a catalog of new prosthetics at the doctor’s office when one particular design caught his eye. Despite only having plain prosthetics in the past, he knew it was time for a change.
“I saw this spotty one — they looked just like Dalmatians,” Sanderson said. “I thought, 'Oh yeah, I’ve got to have that.'"
He and his partner Linda have two Dalmatians, 7-year-old Poppy, who has brown spots, and 6-year-old Harvey, who is bigger and has black spots.
Sanderson explained they got Poppy and Harvey in the years following his amputations.
"They’re part of the healing process," he explained, joking, "They get me up, because they know when they want to go out."
Sanderson, who lost his two legs and two fingers over the last 10 years due to type 1 diabetes, said the shock of his amputations didn’t set in until about a year ago.
“It feels like the end of the world," he said. "You’re not going to be able to do this, you can’t do that. People are going to have to help me do everything. I suppose it’s like losing somebody in your family. It’s a shock, you just don’t know what to say or what to do.”
But, Poppy and Harvey have been his companions as he coped with the shock.
"When I’m ill or [doing] poorly, they’ll come and lay beside me in the bed," he explained. "Especially Harvey — he loves to cuddle up."
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He has also credited his meetings with other amputees for helping him heal.
"I cope with it by visiting other people in the hospital, and talking to them about my experiences in limb loss," Sanderson explained. "It’s brilliant help to me, having someone in exactly the same position."
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