A woman "cried for three days" after falling in love with a stray puppy while on holiday in Turkey.
Cassie Fialho, 27, from Skelmersdale, travelled to Antalya with her fiancé on June 23. Just a few days into their trip, the couple spotted a stray dog begging customers at the RedRujj bar on Konyaalti beach for scraps of food.
Cassie said: "She was going from lounger to lounger being shooed away by most people. Even though she was underweight and in ill health with an infected and cut ear, it didn't stop her personality shining through as soon as we gave her our attention.
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“She's a black Labrador cross and we called her Nala like off The Lion King, because she was like a little lioness. She was such a happy-go-lucky little thing. We played with her and fed her and she fell asleep next to us in the shade.”
Cassie told the ECHO she "couldn't sleep at night thinking about the puppy, prompting her to return to the beach early the next morning where she found her in exactly the same spot. After talking to staff at the beach bar, Cassie discovered Nala was homeless, and had been coming to the beach every day for months to beg for scraps.
Cassie said: “It literally ruined our holiday because I was just crying for three days solid as I didn’t want to leave her.
“The thing that really bothered me is thinking about what would happen when all the beach bars closed, because that’s where she’d go every day for her food. The animals in Turkey often go around in packs but she was completely on her own with no mum or siblings.
"I was worried that she was going to have something bad happen to her and that she wouldn't survive winter."
After developing a special bond with Nala, Cassie felt compelled to take action and reached out to a number of animal rescue centres across the region to see if they could help to find the puppy a home. The 27-year-old came across Hunters House, a Turkish organisation that has been fostering and rehoming dogs in the UK for the past seven years.
Cassie said: " Hayley and Hakan from Hunters House messaged me on the day we were due to fly home saying that they were based three hours away but if we could get to the beach and restrain Nala, they could come and get her the next day."
Despite only having an hour before they needed to travel to the airport, Cassie and her fiancé decided to head to the beach to try and find Nala.
Cassie told the ECHO: “It was me who was more emotional about the dog but she clearly stole my fiance’s heart as well because he said: "Let's just go to the beach and see what happens. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’
"We managed to get her and put a harness and lead on her and the bar staff at RedRujj agreed to keep her there overnight. We literally got back to our hotel with 15 minutes to spare before the taxi came to pick us up for the airport. It was like a proper little love story.”
Although Cassie and her fiance already have a dog back in Skelmersdale, the couple "couldn't relax" without bringing Nala over to the UK, and have started the process of bring the puppy back to the UK.
Cassie told the ECHO: "We now have a group chat where we get sent daily pupdates and videos of Nala. She’s now with a foster family and she’s being socialised with some other cats and dogs while the process goes through.
"She’s been to the vets and had the blood tests and injections that she needs. The tests have shown that she's between three and four months old. We’ve got to wait for her to get a health certificate and a pet passport but we’re hoping that she can come over by October."
The couple have already forked out more than £400 in vets fees and have set up a GoFundMe to cover the cost of bringing Nala to the UK. But Cassie believes the puppy is worth every penny.
She said: “She’s honestly so sweet. The minute you call her or play with her, her little tail is wagging. If I hadn’t got her, I’d have always been wondering what if.”
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