We never gave up on you, Little Bear...to the very end we hoped that we would hear something, anything, just to let us know you were okay. We hope that you survived, that you had the very best of lives, loved by people who adored you as much as we did.

Teddy was the third addition to our Northern Inuit family and a complete accident. He was born on the 22nd September 2011, the day before our wedding anniversary, which I decided was fate! His mummy is the gorgeous Moley and his daddy the very handsome Spirit who is one of my favourite Northern Inuits. He was one of a litter of six, all beautiful greys. Sadly one of his little brothers died at just over 2 weeks old due to his lungs not being properly developed. He was nicknamed 'Mini Ini' and had 24 hour care from his breeder but sadly he just wasn't strong enough to survive.

We had to wait four agonising weeks until we were sure that Teddy was coming home with us. We had picked our three favourite boys from the litter (Teddy was our number one) but the breeder who had been waiting on Yoyo's litter was given first choice over the boys for the future of her breeding lines. When we found out that Teddy was coming home with us we were ecstatic!

Teddy was very poorly at eight weeks old when we brought him home; he wouldn't eat, was very lethargic and all he wanted to do was sleep, very unusual puppy behaviour. I had to syringe feed him every three hours just to get something in to his system. We were terrified that we were going to lose him as he steadily lost more and more weight. Every day we were back and forth to the vets for check-ups and fluids and his condition baffled them. Eventually we were referred to a specialist in Woking for further tests. The boys and I took him to the specialist veterinary clinic and went for a walk in the area, only to receive a call a few hours later saying that they wanted to keep him in. I said goodbye to my Little Bear that day, thinking that there was a strong possibility he wouldn't be coming home. Later that evening we had a call from the specialist to say that Teddy was severely iron deficient and anaemic and also deficient in B12. They had given him an injection of B12 and started him on iron tablets and 6 hours later he began his miraculous recovery and ate by himself for the first time in seven days.

We later found out that the reason for his illness was that he had ruptured his spleen (this is not a genetic condition or anything to do with his breeder, it's just one of those things that can happen if they rough play too hard or fall of a sofa or a step, we forget how fragile these babies are, even when they're so big). He was very lucky to have survived as if the bleed had perforated the capsule which the spleen sits in he would have died. He is our miracle baby.

Teddy is a very happy-go-lucky boy, always pleased to meet new people and new dogs. He plays well with everyone and everything and was 'the perfect puppy'.

Sadly Teddy went missing in August 2012 and we have not heard or seen anything from him since. We waited every day for eleven long years, for the phone call to tell us he was safe and coming home...sadly, that phone call never came...