‘She’s the Queen of Mill Street’: Sam, Demi and the town that brought them both back

It takes Sam Oates half an hour to walk to work. He lives five minutes away. The delay is Demi, his sweet-natured four-legged friend. She has to call in at every shop on the route, and she knows exactly which ones keep the biscuits. By the time she’s said hello to everyone a good chunk of the morning has gone.

“Everyone says she’s the Queen of Mill Street,” Sam says, proudly.

Walk through Bideford with the pair of them and you get two things at once. The first is a running commentary on the town, taking in the old court building (“there’s prison cells under there that hardly anyone knows about”) and the Long Bridge (“one of the oldest bridges in England”) and the New Year’s Eve parties the place was once famous for. Sam has lived here his whole life and is proudly evangelical about it.

The other thing is the interruptions. Every few yards somebody stops to fuss the dog, or ask how Sam’s painting is going (he’s a talented artist with an upcoming exhibition in the town), or tell him he’s looking well.

Demi is a Staffie crossed with a collie, five years old and as calm and patient as you’ll find. Down by the river, she turns into something else entirely, giddily excited about going for a dip, running in after a stick and coming back hauling a branch three times her own length, thoroughly pleased with herself.

She has been with Sam since she was seven weeks old, which means she was there for the worst of it. He was homeless for seven years and had struggled with addiction since he was a teen.

Then, five years ago, another vendor called Kev, a man he used to check on during cold nights, said he was moving on and offered to introduce him to Big Issue. Sam took over Kev’s pitch and hasn’t left since. He’s been clean for two years now and he has a flat with a studio in it, where he paints under the name “samo”, a nod to the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work, and to his own surname.

He’s clear about the part his dog has played.

“I had to look after her each day,” he says. “And when I couldn’t really look after anything else, I still looked after her. I had to have some responsibility. Before I didn’t really care about anything.

“In addiction, people talk to you about your problems,” Sam says. “You’re talking about your problems 10, 20 times a day – it’s reinforcing it all in your head. When you’ve got a dog, people want to talk about the dog. It gives you a break from your own life.”

Not that Demi is a charity case. She more than earns her keep. “Sometimes she earns more in treats than I do in money,” Sam says. “Which I get jealous about.” He’s grinning as he says it.

The one thing that still worries him is what would happen if she got ill.

“I’ve got my eyes on Demi 24 hours a day, but if something happened to her I’d be messed up,” he says.

There used to be a vet in Barnstaple, Diane, who treated homeless people’s animals for free, and his last dog went to her. She’s retired now, and no one replaced her. It worries him. “We haven’t got that in place any more.”

Sam isn’t alone in that. Veterinary care in Britain has become a good deal harder to afford, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) finding prices rose by 63% between 2016 and 2023. For anyone living close to the edge, a sick animal can become an impossible choice fast.

Which is where Animal Friends Pet Insurance comes in. Founded nearly 30 years ago to support animal welfare, Animal Friends donates £1 million a year to animal welfare charities, including StreetVet.

Volunteer vets, vet nurses and support volunteers take the practice to the pavement, treating animals belonging to people who are homeless.

Animal Friends helps StreetVet provide free veterinary care and essential services to pets and owners experiencing homelessness together, ensuring that the bond between them is never a barrier to accessing support.

Funding also helps initiatives such as the StreetVet Accredited Hostel & Day Centre Scheme, which enables hostels and homelessness support services to welcome people with their pet rather than forcing them to choose between a safe place to stay and the animal they love.

What started as two vets and a backpack of supplies in London is now a national charity with 30 different volunteer-delivered outreach clinics around the country, and that sort of growth doesn’t happen without money behind it.

Animal Friends Pet Insurance also sponsors the red tabards worn by vendors’ dogs, Demi’s included.

Back on Mill Street someone buys Demi a bag of treats, her second of the day. Sam mentions his friend’s dog Mavis, Demi’s best friend, and her head swings round hopefully. It’s adorable.

“People look after me, and I try and look out for people,” Sam says.

“There’s hardly any bad people in the world. It’s this whole town which sorted my whole life out. I love it here.”

Bideford, watching him go by, plainly feels much the same way about him.

Animal Friends has donated more than £10 million since 1998 to over 830 animal welfare charities and conservation projects worldwide. Find out more at animalfriends.co.uk.

The charitable work undertaken by Animal Friends Insurance is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.