Linc

Ah, another dog-themed update!

Last week, I came across an elderly dobermann girly, abandoned in kennels and not at all happy about it.  I ummed and ahhed for a couple of days before ringing up to offer to foster her.  The rescue were keen, and after a chat we agreed I should go with most of the dogs to meet her and see how it went before bringing her home.

I duly left last Wednesday morning.  Shortly after I left, the rescue left a message on my phone to say she'd been offered a home - fantastic!  However with a broken mobile, I didn't get the message and carried on my merry way to the rescue some 100 miles away!

On arrival I was of course told; and as I'd said I only wanted to foster a dobe (missing having 3 as I was, since Soli departed - even with 7 dogs, a lost dobe just leaves such a huge hole), I was expecting a lost trip.

Not so.  Fateseemed to have other plans.  In a rescue with no other dobes, just the night before, a dobe X dalmatian had come in for aggression.  He'd been rehomed by them before; unfortunately the new owner turned out to be an old style, dominance/pack leader, 'you WILL do as I say' type fool.  Charlie (as he then was) was on the sofa; Mr Fool told him to get off; Charlie bared his teeth; Mr Fool then reached over his head to get his scruff and oh-so-very-predictably, Charlie snapped and lunged.  So many echoes of Raine's last day with her old owners.

So Charlie found himself chucked back into rescue with a familiar cry of 'I can't risk him with the children'.  And along comes muggins here.

Given Remy's past issues with males, and the breed predisposition to male-male aggression in dobes, I said that depending on how him and Charlie got on, I'd consider fostering Charlie.

I met him first; wary with strangers, so I was told, and within 5 minutes I got a huge hug and a snog!  So off to meet the dogs.  I only had 5 with me - Tia and Saffi are not good for long periods in the car with their arthritis so they were left at home.  We got them down to the exercise paddock to meet Charlie.  A few sniffs then off the lead.

The first thing Remy did was pee up my leg.  This is something he has only done once before, when he was just over a year old.  Later, while I was filling in paperwork, he would chew completely through my seatbelt; alas, as I had predicted, as he is improving on his new medication, both the good and the bad is coming back to life from his younger healthier days!

But, that mark was the worst of it.  Normally, he would posture a little, maybe grumble, and with a few treats be fine.  I never had to reach for my treats - he was fine.  He didn't play, but he was in a totally strange place and the girls were acting like complete idiots, so fair enough.

They hared around; River and Raine acted like they hated each other, and yet despite that and Remy's little faux pas, the rescue staff declared them all very well behaved!  Very strange...

But the decision was made.  With a bit of shifting around - I had a month's dog and mouse food in the passenger side in the front - Charlie came home on the front seat.  Good as gold all the way - he sat, put his chin on his chest and just dozed all the way quite happily.

Meeting Saffi and Tia was fine - they are by far the easiest of the lot to introduce to newbies.

We've had some hiccups - Linc has been an only dog as far as I know, so is learning how to not piss the others off!  But, he is learning it quickly.  He pestered Raine for a few days, but if the bitey face being played through the back door this morning is anything to go by, that's all fine now.

Him and Paige are firm friends - they play a lot, and on our Christmas Day walk yesterday, spent the whole time running around together.

Partners in crime, as if I needed more of those!

We've only had one biting incident - and that was simply impatience.  Thursday it rained heavily from 10.20am until late night - so I'd shut the lean-to door to stop the dogs tracking mud from my swamp/garden through the house.  I was going to let them out, he was sat behind me; and evidently I took too long as he nipped me - only with his little front teeth but very, very hard (hard enough to leave a decent hole which is still healing...)!  But that's it.  Otherwise he is a huge soft lump - I dread to think how hard he was handled before.  Raine is a very, very sensitive dog so it's not hard to see how she could have been pushed to biting - Linc is not a sensitive dog though, so he must have been handled very harsh for a long time.

I await the day when all these idiots finally sit up and realise that dogs have been bred for over 10,000 years to be our companions and do as we ask - they do not need to be manhandled.