After having Moss, our first Border Collie for a few years, we decided to get him a companion.
So off we trotted to the Rescue centre to get another Border Collie, as we had now fallen in love with this breed.
The rescue centre insisted we took Moss with us to meet our new family member to ensure that they got on well together.
After introducing him to a couple of fellow Border Collies, that he just didn't get along with, we were about to give up when we saw this very unusual looking dog, or was it a wolf?!....A dog cowering in his cage, with one of those lampshade things on his head, looking all pitiful and thin!
He got along with Moss just fine.
We were told he had been found wondering the streets after being badly beaten and kicked by his previous owner...and that was enough for us to rescue him and take him home with us.
After doing some research I discovered that he was a relatively new breed of dog called a Utonagan (Which means "Spirit of the wolf") A domestic dog bred to look like a Canadian timber wolf, using 3 other breeds of dog, the German Shepherd, the Siberian Husky and the Malamute....I even managed to trace his breeder, who lives in Blackpool.
Well, to say he had 'issues' would be an understatement!
He had never been house trained...his favourite place to cock his leg was the television!
He pooped anywhere he pleased...the most memorable place was in my daughters bed! (and yes she discovered this as she snuggled down under her covers and felt something mushy on her feet!)
He chewed and tore up anything he found...clothes were a firm favourite!
He was very nervous of strangers, men in particular and would growl and snarl at them.
But seven years on and bucketfulls of love, he is now the best behaved dog in the world!
He just sort of fits in.
He adores squeaky toys and we buy him one every Saturday.
As soon as we walk through the door from our weekly shop he will poke his nose in all the shopping bags until he finds his toy, squeaks it madly for 10 minutes, before removing the Squeaky bit with his teeth!
He's a very smiley dog and the only time he lost his smile was when we lost his brother, Moss, he grieved as much as we did and looked so sad and became withdrawn, so even though we had made a firm decision NOT to get another dog, we ended up getting him a new brother, a Border Collie puppy called Ollie. His smile returned almost immediately!
This year we have bought a caravan, since our daughters grew up and left home, it's impossible to find anyone to look after the dogs while we are away and we won't kennel them! So we decided we would take them on holiday with us! Jake LOVES the caravan!
He will even jump in there for a sleep if ever the door is left open whilst it's still on our driveway at home! He gets sooo excited as soon as he sees us putting our clothes and stuff in there ready to leave for a trip...he paces up and down the house excitedly until it is finally time for him to jump in the car! (Sometimes this can go on for 2 hours or more lol)
When we arrive at our destination he is sooo happy! He just loves all the long walks, the beach and just spending time with us there.
He has a wonderful character and is so gentle and loving.....My best friend, my protector!
He has the most heart melting brown eyes you ever saw!
He is always by my side or lying at my feet.
He adores children and is so tolerant towards them. His initial reaction to seeing a child, of any age, is rolling over on his back to have his tummy tickled and he will allow them to crawl all over him. He loves cuddles! He's like a big teddy bear.
He has a weight issue at the moment, the Vet has told us he is obese! A battle we are fighting (and failing) with him. He gets lots of exercise but eats everything in sight! I was going to say that he loves 'his' food...but that wouldn't be strictly accurate...he loves 'EVERYBODY'S' food!
Update
Sadly, on the 31st January 2014, we laid Jake to rest.
He developed a slight cough, nothing too worrying we thought. After a week it didn't seem to be getting any better, so we took him to the Vet, just to be on the safe side. She said it was nothing to worry about, he probably had a virus and gave him some Antibiotics. A week later he was no better, so we took him back to the Vets. She gave him another week's worth of Antibiotics. But he seemed to be coughing more than ever, so back to the Vets we went.
She didn't seem unduly concerned, but suggested a chest X-ray for the following week.
The result of the X-ray was a huge shock, not just to us but to the Vet too. She said his lungs were that badly damaged that she had to get 2 other Vets to come and have a look. Neither of them could believe that he had actually walked in there. She said they would have expected a dog with such extensive lung damage to have been carried in.
One of his lungs wasn't working at all, the other one was only functioning 25%.
She virtually gave up on him there and then, but my husband asked if there was anything at all that we could try. She gave him a very high dosage of Antibiotics, saying it was a long shot, but we could try it if we wished. He got no worse so we asked for another week's worth of medication.
He started losing weight rapidly and his appetite was very poor.
For months we had been struggling to get him to lose weight...but not like this...this wasn't what we wanted...We just wanted him to be fat and happy again.
The Antibiotics hadn't worked.
We pleaded again to the Vet for help.
She said that the only way there would be any possibility of helping him would be to open him up and see what had brought on his Pneumonia, but that as they had almost lost him when they did the Xray, they said the risk of opening him up was far too high.
So we prayed...some days he seemed to pick up a bit and we thought he was getting better, but then he would have a bad day again....eventually his body just gave up on him.
He was struggling to breath, coughing and vomiting, so we had to make the heart breaking decision to have him put to sleep.
It was so very difficult and an excruciatingly sad time for us.
The last week with him tore my heart into pieces.
He never lost his spirit, he tried his hardest to fight it. He would get excited to go out for a walk, but as the days went by it was taking him longer and longer to recover after any exercise.
He still greeted visitors happily right up until his last day, wagging his tail happily and taking them his toy...
I didn't sleep for the 3 remaining nights of his life. I didn't want him to feel alone.
I hated seeing him struggling to breathe and night times always seemed worse for him.
Yet he still managed to greet us with a smile (and yes! he did smile!) and a wagging tail every morning.
He was only 8 years old. It doesn't seem fair. I took it for granted that we had a few more years with him.
It's such a shame that we didn't get the caravan until his last year with us. He spent some of his happiest times away on holiday with us....We thought he was going to spend many more trips away with us....
I feel lost without him and miss him so very much.
He has left a huge hole in our lives.
So off we trotted to the Rescue centre to get another Border Collie, as we had now fallen in love with this breed.
The rescue centre insisted we took Moss with us to meet our new family member to ensure that they got on well together.
After introducing him to a couple of fellow Border Collies, that he just didn't get along with, we were about to give up when we saw this very unusual looking dog, or was it a wolf?!....A dog cowering in his cage, with one of those lampshade things on his head, looking all pitiful and thin!
He got along with Moss just fine.
We were told he had been found wondering the streets after being badly beaten and kicked by his previous owner...and that was enough for us to rescue him and take him home with us.
After doing some research I discovered that he was a relatively new breed of dog called a Utonagan (Which means "Spirit of the wolf") A domestic dog bred to look like a Canadian timber wolf, using 3 other breeds of dog, the German Shepherd, the Siberian Husky and the Malamute....I even managed to trace his breeder, who lives in Blackpool.
Well, to say he had 'issues' would be an understatement!
He had never been house trained...his favourite place to cock his leg was the television!
He pooped anywhere he pleased...the most memorable place was in my daughters bed! (and yes she discovered this as she snuggled down under her covers and felt something mushy on her feet!)
He chewed and tore up anything he found...clothes were a firm favourite!
He was very nervous of strangers, men in particular and would growl and snarl at them.
But seven years on and bucketfulls of love, he is now the best behaved dog in the world!
He just sort of fits in.
He adores squeaky toys and we buy him one every Saturday.
As soon as we walk through the door from our weekly shop he will poke his nose in all the shopping bags until he finds his toy, squeaks it madly for 10 minutes, before removing the Squeaky bit with his teeth!
He's a very smiley dog and the only time he lost his smile was when we lost his brother, Moss, he grieved as much as we did and looked so sad and became withdrawn, so even though we had made a firm decision NOT to get another dog, we ended up getting him a new brother, a Border Collie puppy called Ollie. His smile returned almost immediately!
This year we have bought a caravan, since our daughters grew up and left home, it's impossible to find anyone to look after the dogs while we are away and we won't kennel them! So we decided we would take them on holiday with us! Jake LOVES the caravan!
He will even jump in there for a sleep if ever the door is left open whilst it's still on our driveway at home! He gets sooo excited as soon as he sees us putting our clothes and stuff in there ready to leave for a trip...he paces up and down the house excitedly until it is finally time for him to jump in the car! (Sometimes this can go on for 2 hours or more lol)
When we arrive at our destination he is sooo happy! He just loves all the long walks, the beach and just spending time with us there.
He has a wonderful character and is so gentle and loving.....My best friend, my protector!
He has the most heart melting brown eyes you ever saw!
He is always by my side or lying at my feet.
He adores children and is so tolerant towards them. His initial reaction to seeing a child, of any age, is rolling over on his back to have his tummy tickled and he will allow them to crawl all over him. He loves cuddles! He's like a big teddy bear.
Jake's first day with us - Skinny and frightened.
He has a weight issue at the moment, the Vet has told us he is obese! A battle we are fighting (and failing) with him. He gets lots of exercise but eats everything in sight! I was going to say that he loves 'his' food...but that wouldn't be strictly accurate...he loves 'EVERYBODY'S' food!
Sadly, on the 31st January 2014, we laid Jake to rest.
He developed a slight cough, nothing too worrying we thought. After a week it didn't seem to be getting any better, so we took him to the Vet, just to be on the safe side. She said it was nothing to worry about, he probably had a virus and gave him some Antibiotics. A week later he was no better, so we took him back to the Vets. She gave him another week's worth of Antibiotics. But he seemed to be coughing more than ever, so back to the Vets we went.
She didn't seem unduly concerned, but suggested a chest X-ray for the following week.
The result of the X-ray was a huge shock, not just to us but to the Vet too. She said his lungs were that badly damaged that she had to get 2 other Vets to come and have a look. Neither of them could believe that he had actually walked in there. She said they would have expected a dog with such extensive lung damage to have been carried in.
One of his lungs wasn't working at all, the other one was only functioning 25%.
She virtually gave up on him there and then, but my husband asked if there was anything at all that we could try. She gave him a very high dosage of Antibiotics, saying it was a long shot, but we could try it if we wished. He got no worse so we asked for another week's worth of medication.
He started losing weight rapidly and his appetite was very poor.
For months we had been struggling to get him to lose weight...but not like this...this wasn't what we wanted...We just wanted him to be fat and happy again.
The Antibiotics hadn't worked.
We pleaded again to the Vet for help.
She said that the only way there would be any possibility of helping him would be to open him up and see what had brought on his Pneumonia, but that as they had almost lost him when they did the Xray, they said the risk of opening him up was far too high.
So we prayed...some days he seemed to pick up a bit and we thought he was getting better, but then he would have a bad day again....eventually his body just gave up on him.
He was struggling to breath, coughing and vomiting, so we had to make the heart breaking decision to have him put to sleep.
It was so very difficult and an excruciatingly sad time for us.
The last week with him tore my heart into pieces.
He never lost his spirit, he tried his hardest to fight it. He would get excited to go out for a walk, but as the days went by it was taking him longer and longer to recover after any exercise.
He still greeted visitors happily right up until his last day, wagging his tail happily and taking them his toy...
I didn't sleep for the 3 remaining nights of his life. I didn't want him to feel alone.
I hated seeing him struggling to breathe and night times always seemed worse for him.
Yet he still managed to greet us with a smile (and yes! he did smile!) and a wagging tail every morning.
He was only 8 years old. It doesn't seem fair. I took it for granted that we had a few more years with him.
It's such a shame that we didn't get the caravan until his last year with us. He spent some of his happiest times away on holiday with us....We thought he was going to spend many more trips away with us....
I feel lost without him and miss him so very much.
He has left a huge hole in our lives.
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