Our faithful old Staffie Macduff died about 3 years or so back, (that's him in my avatar) and we thought we wouldn't have another dog as he was such a character and hard to replace.
We had a rethink though, and went to our local dogs home in Bristol and it's a very sad indictment of society today that of the 40 or so dogs there, at least 80% were staffie or staffie cross dogs, abandoned by their owners.
They are seen as a status symbol by the chavs, but are such lovable friendly dogs around humans and get such a bad press.
We looked around and saw one poor little dog who was in pretty poor condidtion.
We enquired, and found out he had been found wandering in Bristol about 6 weeks before, starving, half his recommended weight, and covered in bite marks on his muzzle, ears, paws and body.
He also had a massive tear under his front leg on his torso that needed stitching.
The dogs home scanned him and found he had been chipped, but on contacting the owners numerous times, they never responded, so he was left there.
We got the same third degree to make sure we were suitable to home him, including home visits etc, and rightly so I believe, especially once we had him home with us.
What was so sad was that he was terrified of contact initially, and simply undoing your shoelace had him cowering, obviously expecting a beating, and he was so scared to even go to his food, we had to almost force him there and coax him to eat by leaving a trail of treats.
I'm of the assumption that he was used for fighting by the owners, and personally, I would have followed it up beyond simply taking the dog into the home.
The dogs homes are right to veto people to make sure they are going to homes that they won't be subjected to further abuse, and we had follow up visits a couple of times at random to make sure he was in good hands.
We've had him for around 18 months now, and they reckoned he was around 1 year old when we got him.
Even despite his hard life initially, he has followed in the footsteps of our other dog, and is fantastic with kids and people, but even now, when he sees another dog he is incredibly wary, always looking over his shoulder to watch his back, and if one gets too near his hackles are up, and he's ready to pounce and fight.
That is the one thing that is the hardest part. Trying to convince him that he is safe and has no need to fight, cower or be afraid takes time.
It's a long road, and the problem with other dogs is the most difficult.
All in all it's well worth it though, he's a fantastic little hound!
He was named Dollar at the home, so we stuck with it.
Here he is a month or so after we got him, almost back to his correct weight, but you can still see a few little scars from bites.
Andy
