Raine began a series of adoptions of distressed dogs. I'd already known her for 6 months when she arrived; she'd introduced herself one day when I was with a client by hurtling out of her house and flopping onto her back in the middle of the road! A woman I knew who was with us took her back in and got talking to the owners and started working with them. Unfortunately, her owners did not understand what they'd taken on and 7 months later I got a call, just after christmas, to say that she had turned on the owners and was going to be PTS. A few hours later I was bringing her home, via the vet as she was seriously ill.
This turned out to be stress-triggered haemorraghic gastroenteritis; basically, any time she suffered enough stress at one time, her gut would fail and this condition begin. She did not eat for at least a week, she would lose weight and condition, she suffered considerable pain and was generally miserable. After a couple of years it no longer happened and the aggression she came home with left much earlier too. Rai was an excellent example of why everyone should do their research before they get any dog, whether it be a purebreed, crossbreed or all-out mongrel - basic positive training methods are universal, and with crosses of known breeds, getting to know the breed traits can avert a disaster; exactly what didn't happen for Rai. The owners and their first trainer knew nothing of Belgian shepherds; the owners bought a lab X puppy expecting an easy to train, laid back lab (often a misconception in itself!), and instead got a malinois in a vaguely lab-shaped body. She was intensely sensitive, fiercely intelligent, but with a massive dose of nervous on top; not a dog for an average pet owner but she was fabulous!
She also became heavily allergic to many foods and in 2017, forced me to switch everyone onto raw feeding. I'd been looking at it anyway but her allergies reached a point of being uncontrollable at about the same time as Faolan developed cancer, so it was the only choice for them. She taught me a lot about identifying and managing allergies in dogs, knowledge which continues to be useful with Abraham and clients' dogs.
This turned out to be stress-triggered haemorraghic gastroenteritis; basically, any time she suffered enough stress at one time, her gut would fail and this condition begin. She did not eat for at least a week, she would lose weight and condition, she suffered considerable pain and was generally miserable. After a couple of years it no longer happened and the aggression she came home with left much earlier too. Rai was an excellent example of why everyone should do their research before they get any dog, whether it be a purebreed, crossbreed or all-out mongrel - basic positive training methods are universal, and with crosses of known breeds, getting to know the breed traits can avert a disaster; exactly what didn't happen for Rai. The owners and their first trainer knew nothing of Belgian shepherds; the owners bought a lab X puppy expecting an easy to train, laid back lab (often a misconception in itself!), and instead got a malinois in a vaguely lab-shaped body. She was intensely sensitive, fiercely intelligent, but with a massive dose of nervous on top; not a dog for an average pet owner but she was fabulous!
She also became heavily allergic to many foods and in 2017, forced me to switch everyone onto raw feeding. I'd been looking at it anyway but her allergies reached a point of being uncontrollable at about the same time as Faolan developed cancer, so it was the only choice for them. She taught me a lot about identifying and managing allergies in dogs, knowledge which continues to be useful with Abraham and clients' dogs.