To the rescue

Training Dressage Horses is all very well but a wild dog is quite another matter. Having re-habilitated a number of abused and misunderstood horses I thought that to rescue a dear little German Shepherd pup must be a piece of cake. I looked on the rescue web sites and found a five month old pup that had been kept in a shed since birth because it didn’t sell at the allotted 12 weeks like the others.These puppy farms have a lot to answer for. What could be so wrong with a young pup that I couldn’t fix! Arrangements were made, directions got, Warwickshire to Wales here we come!

I have to be honest with you I was a bit nervous and didn’t sleep much the previous night, but I was pretty convinced that I was doing the right thing. The big day dawns and my other GSD Bruno and I set off to fetch our new baby. So very exciting. Well when we arrived we were met by a burly Welshman being dragged along by a wild animal towards somewhere, anywhere, just out, blank look on it's face, darting eyes, intermittently leaping on the Welshman, so high, so quick. Burly Welshman tells me to take the dog for a walk! I don't think so, not what I would have called it. Help, what an unpleasant experience. Very difficult to stay upright, I couldn’t manage one side of it, so strong, muscled up like a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Of course they are not going to tell you how bad they are, I mean would you ever visit or even offer to take the bloody thing home. It is hard to imagine how wild a dog can be when it has never seen the outside world. Such a sad state of affairs. Poor little creature.

How on earth could I leave it behind. The three hour journey home was torture. Constant screaming, yelping and howling. I tried the radio at full volume, then a CD, but that only seemed to make him shout even louder. He was sick twice before we got home, and as soon as I got him out of the car he pooed and immediately ate it at lightening speed. At this point I really thought that my organized little life had ended!

I opened the kitchen door and before I took my next breath he had all four feet on the kitchen worktop. Hard to say which one of us was in the most panic. I was certainly the one who needed rescuing now! To sum up, his repertoire included screaming, yelping, leaping up my back from behind and grabbing on to my hair, poo eating, bolting through doors, and nipping. To mention just a few. We have survived two day’s and there is a little settling down. Although He is still snapping, leaping, and racing about panting. But on the plus side, not being sick and allowing me to take a tiny bit of control. Mind you feeding time is a complete nightmare as he doesn’t know how to chew, he just gulps and chokes until the food is gone. This takes all of about a second. His face is beginning to soften though and he is looking to me for reassurance now and again. But the best thing is that he has started to wag his tail. Play is another huge issue, or lack of it, hard to imagine a puppy who doesn’t know how to play, well this one doesn’t, and he’s a sort of adult dog in puppy clothing.

It’s really quite bizarre. It’s now the end of the fifth day and lots of education is going on. We went off to meet some sheep today. Some friends of mine have a flock of pet sheep and we set up a situation where they fed the sheep and I took the pup in amongst them. So I knew that whatever happened the sheep would stay put with their food. The pup’s form of defense is attack and as predicted he lunged at the nearest sheep as soon as he could. I gave him the chance to get really close to several before I wrestled him to the ground with all my strength; it took three goes before he begged me to take him out of the field. “ No more sheep for me thank you very much”. I have lots of bites and bruises but the battle was won by me. Bit of shock for the lad. We have been trying each day to play with some toys but really he has very little interest, it is so pathetic to watch, not helped by the fact that Bruno thinks that all the toys, balls, beds, bones, etc are all his.

Week two and he is desperate to please me. In fact things are happening at break neck speed. He can sit, stay, down, and walk to heel on and off lead, and waits for me to go through doors first. Many a time you see him looking to Bruno to see what to do, really sweet. Also he is carrying a little ball on a rope. (Well most of the time.) When he drops it Bruno runs back, finds it, waits with it, then shows pup where it is by pointing to it, pup then picks it up and they run off together with their ropes dangling. Till the next time of course. It’s all quite hilarious.

The puppy is actually very brave in that he is prepared to try all the new things that I ask him, and is now so much happier he is wagging his tail like a Labrador, with the full  ‘wiggle on’. I think that we are going to make it. Four weeks on and we are going to make it. We are getting very close now and life would be the worse without him. If you could see him now you’d think me a complete liar and that I’d made the whole thing up. I am even wondering myself if it’s all just been a bad dream.

And by the way I have called him CHIOT. The puppy he never was.

Sally Barnes 2007