The owners: Karen Sabiston, 46, and partner Ian Jenkins, 58, from Elgin have three kids Sweyn Macaskill, 16, Conner Jenkins, 19, and Madison Jenkins 16. Karen is a pharmacy technician and Ian is a forklift driver and they have lived in Elgin for eight years. They enjoy spending time as a family and walking their dogs Sadie and Maya at Cooper Park.
As told by Sadie’s owner Karen: How long has Sadie been in your life? Our black labrador Sadie is now 12. We were living in Thurso at the time where my family are based and we got her from a breeder in Barrock when she was 10 weeks old. I wanted to call her Coco because she’s black like Coco Chanel but my son Sweyn said we couldn’t because Coco is like the Coco Pops cereal and they’re brown and she’s black.
He said: “I think we’ll call her Sadie Baby.” Why did you decide to get Sadie? It was my son Sweyn. He was going through the process of being diagnosed as having ADHD.
It was a strange time. I think I wasn’t entirely accepting of the situation and I felt a bit of a failure as a mother really. He wasn’t communicating very well and it wasn’t that he wasn’t able to speak he just chose not to.
He didn’t feel too lonely it was me who worried he was. I decided then that I was going to get a dog so he would always have somebody to grow up with. They were best pals, they had lots of fun together as Sweyn grew up.
Sweyn adores her, she’s hard not to adore. How did she help support your family? I had a really lo.