So, we rehomed our dog Tommy

You may recall that back in May we took in a dog called Tommy. Well, I came to call him Tom, because that sounded more manly when calling him in the street.

Anyway, the thing with Tom is that he was a total nightmare. Without an enclosed back yard, we had to tie him up whenever he wasn’t inside the house. He hated this, and would howl, especially when he saw us in the kitchen.

He wasn’t great fun to walk with either. Tom pulled relentlessly, really hard and we first tried a harness, then a Halti. The Halti was good – it sat on his muzzle and pulled his head to the side whenever he pulled too hard. Since dogs have trouble walking properly while looking sideways, they have to slow down. He resisted this with flair – trying to paw it off his nose, or stopping to rub his nose in the grass or struggling to loosen it.

Eventually, he managed to score his nose by messing with the Halti, so I took it off for a while to allow it to heal. During the week or two when he was just on the normal lead, it was hell. He would pull abruptly and ended up injuring my shoulder and hand (never wrap the lead around your hand!).

Because our garden isn’t enclosed, it was impossible to let him off the lead to play or teach him games. And we couldn’t afford to have it properly fenced. When we tried to let him off the lead in the local forest park, he’d race off, prompting sometimes hours-long search and retrieve missions.

And though I appreciated the exercise, I couldn’t persuade anyone in the family to come out walking the dog with me. Yes, we’d fallen into that old trap where everybody claims they’ll get involved looking after the family pet and then only one person – me – does.

The Rehoming

In the end, rather than send Tom back to the dog pound, where he’d stand a good chance of being put-down, we opted to try and re-home him. Lisa put an advert on GumTree and we were contacted by a nice couple looking for a companion for their dog.

I agreed to bring Tom round to them – partly to see their dog, and partially because it would be harder for them to turn him down. Yes, I’m a ruthless operator when I have to be! As it turned out, Tom and their dog got on really well. The two mutts chased each other around their nicely fenced in garden and exhausted each other with friendly wrestling. I stayed with them for over an hour while they asked me questions about his history and temperament. They were serious about taking him at least!

And in the end, Tom moved in with the couple that same day. I drove off, and I must say, I wasn’t sad about rehoming him. Taking on a dog when my father had been ill in hospital was definitely a bad move. We simply hadn’t thought it through. I’m just glad that we got him rehomed and I know as I left his new family that he at least looked exhausted and happy.

Our new dog, Tommy

We got a new dog – Tommy – from the Carryduff USPCA a few weeks ago. I’m tempted to say the last Friday in May (29th?), but I’m hazy on the details. Time has kind of flown in.

About four years ago, we rehomed our Labrador, Cindy after we realised that we couldn’t give her the time and attention she needed. At the time, we had three very young children, Lisa didn’t want the dog in the house for hygiene reasons and we sadly made the decision to part company with her.

Recently though, the children have been pestering us to get a new dog. Things got worse when we minded my sister’s dog for a few days, and Lisa – stupidly – told them that they were being tested to see if they could manage a dog of their own. Of course, they treated the dog excellently and we were kind of obliged to think more seriously about opening our home up to a new dog.

We started to look about – fussily: we didn’t want to get just any dog – and visited a couple of animal sanctuaries as well as scouted online. On our visit to Carryduff, we discovered Tommy, a Labrador/who-knows-what cross. He’s a handsome dog, reasonably well-mannered, but has a habit of barking at any other dog he can’t get near. If you can manage an introduction between him and the other dog, he’s fine. If not, get out the earplugs!

It’s a nice feeling to have a dog in the house again. And the beauty of our situation at the moment is that we’re both working from home, so can devote a lot of attention to him. He spends a fair bit of time in the back garden during the day and comes in at night mostly when the kids have gone to bed.

Oh, he’s got his problems though: I’m not comfortable with him around the children, especially Daniel, who has a habit of pulling on his tail. Although he’s getting better at responding when called, he’s not reliable enough to be let off his lead, which is something I liked to do with our other dogs. I’ve got a few issues to work out with him there.

So, the training books are being dug out, and the appropriate equipment has been bought. Snacks and rewards are being tested. We’ve got those awful plastic bags for picking up any dog crap he drops in populated areas. My gag reflexes have been tested to breaking point. Yuck.

Lassie: an unexpected death

The family dog, Lassie, died yesterday. Lassie was a border collie that my father and I had brought back from a house he was doing some work in. She’d been in the family for years, like since I was back in secondary school.

Before my father got taken into hospital, he’d remarked on how the dog’s health was deteriorating. She had no energy anymore, and had started a disturbing habit of collapsing when walking through fields.

I guess the upheaval around the homestead had become too much for the dog, because yesterday an aunt phoned to say the dog was dead in the back garden, and my sister’s dog was barking at it. Of course, my mother and sister have been more or less living in Belfast for the last few weeks. My other sister was looking after the dogs, but had gone to Belfast herself yesterday morning. A neighbour noticed the dog hadn’t moved all day and phoned an aunt to get a message through.

After drawing a blank with the rest of the family, she called me. I managed to track down my brother in law Michael and asked him to race home and check if it was true. After 45 minutes, he called to say yes, the dog was dead. I felt so sorry for the poor old mutt, dying alone on the back doorstep.

The next question was what to do with the body? Michael talked about burying her in the back garden, but I asked him to check with a vet about the best way to dispose of a family pet. They recommended a cremation at around £70.00, so he brought the dog out to them.

As of right now, we haven’t broken the news to my father. He’s holding up reasonably well in hospital, but I’m worried that the upset of his dog dying might affect his condition. I want to check this out with the medical staff at the hospital, but I’m worried that my mother or one of my sisters will blurt it out anyway. I know that he’d want to know if the dog died, but it’s such a critical time in his treatment that I wouldn’t want to hurt his chances with such a blow.

It’s funny though. The day we brought Lassie home, he grumbled all the way back in the car about not wanting a dog. And for the first few years, he was ambivalent about her. Over time though, he grew fond of the dog, and after I left for university, the two became constant companions.

As for me, I’ll remember her as a pup, bounding through the long grass in the fields near my childhood home. She was a fantastic dog: obedient and well trained (I’ll take some of the credit for that, thanks) and loved to play fetch. In fact, she was obsessive about fetch. She’d find you a stick to throw for her. More than once she’d drag a massive branch down the road in the hopes that we’d throw it for her.

By my estimation, Lassie was easily between 15 and 17 years old, so she had a relatively long life. It’s just sad that she was alone when she died. I know my father wouldn’t have wanted that.