Rescue Dog Stories

Family Of Rescue Dogs Series by Brian L. Porter

Series Excerpt

By the time Sasha’s leg was fully healed, autumn had crept up on us and the weather, though still warm and sunny for the most part, had turned changeable, so much so that for the first time, Sasha’s nemesis suddenly reared its head during a particularly unsettled weather week. Though we hadn’t really taken much notice of it previously, occasionally thinking she might not want to go out for a walk if she was suffering some residual pain in her joint perhaps, we now found out the true reason for her periodic reticence to leave the house…RAIN!

Sasha absolutely hated getting wet. Every time we tried to take her for a walk in the rain, and that week we had rain every day, we’d get as far as the tall, five foot gate that led from just outside our back door to the garden path and the outside world, and she’d dig her heels in and refuse to go any further. We tried and we tried, first Juliet, then me, all to no avail. We’d have to wait until a break in the rain and then try to take her for a walk in the hope it stayed dry long enough to give her the exercise she needed. If it began to rain while out walking with her, she was intelligent enough to know digging her heels in would only cause her to get even wetter, so her tactic in that case was to simply turn in the direction of home and literally drag the unfortunate walker along the path at the best speed she could muster, bearing in mind one of us was hanging on to her lead for dear life!

To this day, she simply will not go for a walk in the rain, though she has gradually deemed it acceptable, over the years, to go for a very short one in the lightest of drizzle. So just when you were all thinking we had this wonderful, perfect amazing dog, I’ve gone and shattered your illusions haven’t I? Even our wonderful Sasha has her idiosyncrasies, with rain being right at the top of her list of ‘pet hates’ (excuse the pun).

Rain aside, Sasha was loving life, living it to the full at long last and sharing time with her was a sheer joy. She was certainly growing into an extremely good looking dog, and drew admiring comments from many people we met while out walking with her. It was while she was playing with two of our other dogs on the playing field one day that we discovered yet another of those idiosyncrasies; small fluffy dogs! If Sasha saw a small fluffy dog, for example a Shih Tzu or Maltese terrier, she’d immediately make a bee line for it. At first we thought she was going to actually attack such dogs, but then we discovered she thought they were large dog toys! Seriously she would run up to them, bowl them over, start leaping around like a demented, whirling dervish, or to be more accurate and precise, like a very large overgrown puppy. Of course, most dog owners who didn’t know Sasha understandably found her behaviour rather scary and they too believed their dogs to be under attack by this rampaging ‘monster’ that would come running across the field towards their poor little darlings. We soon realised we’d have to keep Sasha on her lead if small fluffy dogs were around, and still have to do that today. She’s now a full grown Staffy of course and strong enough to knock almost any dog down if she runs into it like a battering ram at full speed.

In fact, her antics with small fluffy dogs tended to mirror certain behaviour at home, where she has always been rather...let’s say, clumsy. If she wants to get from A to B, Sasha tends to be quite single minded about it and will often almost knock me or Juliet down as she clumps past us, banging into our legs in her determination to get where she wants to be. Over the years, she’s walked into doors, chair legs, and even an occasional wall. ‘Bull in a china shop’ would be an apt description of Sasha on a mission! Or should that be ‘Bull terrier in a china shop?’

As most of the current staff at Sasha’s veterinary practice can testify, Sasha can be so excitable when I take her in for regular check-ups that she howls if she sees other dogs in the waiting room, so I usually wait outside until it’s her turn to be seen.

But, to return to our story, life for Sasha had now become just what it should have been from the beginning. It was not long after her first birthday however, that we noticed she was continually licking at the pad of one of her front paws. At first, thinking it was a minor irritation caused by walking in something on the field or something picked up during a walk, we didn’t give it too much attention but as the days turned to two weeks with no sign of the problem going away, I once again made a phone call and arranged an appointment for Sasha to see the vet.

The following day, we arrived for her appointment nice and early. Luckily, we were met with an empty surgery, no dogs for her to howl at.

Rebecca examined her paws and after seeing or sensing something we hadn’t seen or identified she moved on to examine the inside of her ears. After completing her examination, as Sasha stood wagging her tail as usual, Rebecca announced her belief that Sasha was suffering from a type of canine dermatitis. If her diagnosis was correct, she explained, this was a form of the disease that affected the pads and skin of the inner ears, in other words, the exposed bare skin areas and was more prevalent in white dogs than those of other colours. It had to happen to Sasha of course, didn’t it? She prescribed antihistamine tablets and we hoped it would soon clear the problem, but, in true Sasha style, it didn’t. After trying for a month to eradicate the infection, Rebecca decided to take blood samples from Sasha to be sent to the lab for testing, in the hope they may be able to identify the cause of any allergy that may be at the root of the problem.

Sure enough, a couple of allergies were found after the blood samples were tested. First of all, Sasha was found to be allergic to the almost microscopic ‘food mites’ found in the dust present in all dried proprietary dog foods. As Sasha was fed on the same dried food as the rest of our dogs, with a little meat added to the evening meal, this came as a surprise as none of our other dogs had ever exhibited any such symptoms. It had to be Sasha of course! It also appeared she had a lesser allergy to certain grass seeds which it would be almost impossible to prevent her coming into contact with.

It was possible, however, for us to take action to help prevent her coming into contact with the mites in the food dust. Quite simply, Rebecca advised a change of food, something different from the dried food she was used to. As a result we changed her food to a soft food, not tinned meat, but one that came in sealed bags that helped maintain its moist contents. She now had her own special diet while the other dogs remained on the dry food. This, together with daily steroid tablets helped to bring the problem under control to some extent. Unfortunately, this problem has remained with her since that time and she has to take the tablets permanently, which we have to increase at times when the allergy flares up, as it does from time to time. It’s a shame and quite upsetting to see her scratching her ears and licking and chewing at her pads when the allergy decides to show itself, but Sasha, being Sasha, just gets on with life, without letting the irritation affect her enjoyment of each day.

So, after surviving her initial abandonment, followed by two broken legs, well, one leg broken twice, our baby girl now found herself with something else to contend with. A human being might fall into mega depression as a result of all the setbacks she suffered in those first two years, but not Sasha. We were by now beginning to realise just how resilient, resourceful and ‘special’ our beautiful rescued staffy was.