A COUPLE who scooped £1million on the lottery used the money to retire early but that wasn’t the best part of their win.
Ruth and Peter Doyle won the life-changing amount of money playing the EuroMillions lotto in 2015 and have helped rescue nearly a thousand dogs.
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The pair say saving the pooches feels as good as hitting the jackpot again.
Their prize money allowed them to retire early from their jobs, and making use of their spare time the pair decided to make the 3,000-mile drive to Romania to bring back 13 abandoned dogs to be adopted by UK families.
Since then they have thrown themselves into rescuing more dogs and compare rehoming each pet to the buzz of their numbers coming up.
Former decorating consultant Peter, 68, said: “I’d say it’s touching on a thousand dogs we’ve been able to help, certainly high hundreds.
“Every single dog that gets adopted is like winning the lottery again. It’s such a pleasure – you see them and you just think poor guy then they go to a new home and it’s just wow!”
Retired project manager Ruth, 59, said: “We’re big animal lovers. We’d already had a couple of rescue dogs when we won and our oldest dog, a border collie, had a few health issues and needed a £15,000 hip replacement, we were able to not even worry about the money.
“But the win allowed us to both retire early and I started to volunteer with a Romanian dog rescue charity.
“We decided to drive to Romania and brought back 13 rescue dogs.
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“I don’t think we can count the number of dogs we’ve been able to help.
“Since I’ve retired I’ve been volunteering with this charity and doing home checks and all the paperwork for them to come into the country.
“It’s enabled us to leave more of a mark on the world than we would have been able to had we not have won, we would have just worked for longer.”
But the couple admit their animal rescuing wasn’t without difficulties.
Having driven a van full of dog food around the clock for 35 hours on barely any sleep, border guards barred them from crossing from Hungary into Romania where they were supposed to be collecting abandoned dogs for the return trip.
It’s enabled us to leave more of a mark on the world than we would have been able to had we not have won
Ruth Doyle
It wasn’t until Ruth from Lyneham, Wiltshire, stood up to the guards that they backed down and allowed the couple to cross.
She said: “We’d driven with aid, dog food and things, but they said no you can’t come in because you haven’t got this one document. I went into the office and went higher and we came back with 13 dogs.”
Peter added: “As we were going into Romania the border guards just said turn around you can’t come in.
“I just felt horrified that we’d gone all that way and weren’t getting in but Ruth wasn’t having that and turned around and spoke to the boss and pleaded to be let in because we had aid and dog food but they said no you can’t come in because one bit of paperwork isn’t right.”
Ruth and Peter, who have two dogs, Bailey and Lily, this week led a team of 20 millionaire Lottery winners in building a gym and herb garden at a home for dogs who have lost their owners.
The Cinnamon Trust’s two ‘pet retirement homes’ take in pets whose owners have passed away while a nationwide volunteering programme enables older people to keep their pets with them at home for longer.
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