Since a few weeks the conversation about 'taking' a dog is on again. I quote taking on purpose because I see buying a dog in the house somewhat different than just buying something from the supermarket if you get my point.
The thing is, when my wife and I didn't have any kids we had a dog, a Labrador named Bo. I will come back a bit later on Bo... He is some story. When Bo died we were some time without a pet in the house untill there was a break in in our house. Thieves got in our house, they stole our car, mobile phones and (the thing I was the most upset about) my bassguitar at that time. When the police came to investigate there was this policewoman we already knew shallow. She made a note that perhaps it was safer to have a dog in the house, it frightens potential burglars. At first I didn't want any dog no more because I had such a heartache losing Bo, I didn't think I wanted or couldn't go trough that again. But we made the decission to get a other dog, also a Labrador. We called him Ozzy (yes from Ozzy Osbourne)... I will tell about Ozzy some other time, this post I would like to dedicate to Bo, our big friend who left us way to soon...
Bo
My wife and I (at that time my girlfriend by the way) lived together in our first bought house in Zutphen. Although we both grew up with dogs we had decided not to get a dog of our own because we both worked (I full time, my wife 28 hours a week). Untill we got a call of the aunt of my mife. She asked if we were interested in a dog, a black labrador, her neighbours at the back of her house had a Labrador but couldn't take care of him anymore because (as they stated) her kids turned to be allergic fr dogs. The labrador was 7 months at that time. We talked about it and finally decided to (at least) have a look in the dogshelter. (the neigbours already placed the dog outside their house).
Well if there is one thing you never should do, is have a look at a young dog when you are still not sure if you want to have it... I remember coming into the shelter and seeing him in a cage, he came to us waggling his tail... He looked adorable.... So we were sold....That was our new buddy... We arranged everything with his former owners, and we took him home....
Bo at our home
At first things did go very well. He was a happy, adorable playfull dog. Still young of course but we did see he did'nt learned any manners at his former home. But that didn't bother us, we took a puppy course with him and hoped he would adjust some more... At night he layed on the couch with us, he was very affectionate.
After some time we noticed he demolished some stuff in the house when we weren't home. it started small, with some papers, a CD etc.. But things got worse in a quick tempo.. We still were training with him at a local dogschool. We explained the problem to them but they only could say that we had to train more and had to look if someone could visit the dog when we were away. So ment good but it wasn't helping us.
The funny thing was, despite his demolishing behaviour, he stayed the most affectionate and carrying dog when we were at home. He even didn't realised that he demolished so many things... and to be honest, although you get very angry when you arrive at home and seeing stuff broken... It's hard to manage your anger in a way the dog really knows something wrong...because he just came waggling to me every single time like if he would say "Hey boss, great to see you home"...... And for me it's than difficult to be angry...
At one time I came home from work and I noticed something strange at the frontdoor. The curtains where in a strange way in front of the window...So I walked towards the door and saw that the rails were lying on the floor in stead of the ceiling. Bo pulled the rails of the curtains straight out of the ceiling, with curtains still connected to the rails.. And if that wasn't enough, we had 'anti-burgelar' locks on the inside which you can close at night from the inside which he had locked while he was fighting with the curtains :)
So I had to think a way to get inside because Bo was barking seeing me but I didn't go in (because I couldn't). In our garden we had the same locks but they were locked by us, because we always came in the frontdoor. Finally I thought that the window on the attic was open so I knocked at the door of our neighbours to ask if I could climb through their window, over the roof to ours. So I did, I am afraid of heights so walking on a slanted roof, 3 floors high was all but fun... But I managed, and to be honest it's still a great story :).
So when I came down Bo was again waggling like nothing happened. We tried a lot of things but there was just a problem he had being alone we thought. Till one day we came home and he really destroyed about everything.... My whole dvd collection, cd's, everything in a thousand pieces... My wife was finished with it and said that he had to leave, that this couldn't go any further like this, and in essence I agreed with her but I thought the dog had a problem, maybe from his first months...I didn't know but I wouldnt give up on him..
So we had a big problem on our hands, not knowing what to do... untill I came at work and spoke to a colleague, we came at Bo by coincidence and I explained him our dillema... He told me his wife had a school for dogs and she could help is but than we had to make some sacrifices. With that he ment that we have to put in a lot of effort... I told him that I would do anything just to help Bo and eventually ourselves...
So the first thing was that we brought Bo to the dogschool were he stayed internal for two weeks. In those two weeks we had to go training with him every single evening, 7 days a week. The kind of training they gave was rather orthodox, but we only thought of helping the dog get his trust in us so we could keep him... And we really saw it as our last resort...
After the two weeks he came home again and we kept on training for three months, 5 days a week. We did all kinds of excersises with him to become a team, a equal team. And how bizar things went, after one and a half month we had a totally other dog, not his kuddleness but his behaviour.. It was just like if he finally knew we didn't leave him and that we alway came back to him...
When we were finished with the training we had the most sweetest and most reliable dog you can imagine. He didn't have to walk at the belt when we were walking outside with him, he was full of joy and played all the time with us... And like the picture I posted above, at night he lay with us on the couch enjoying our company.. We took him everywhere with us, to the camping, to friends, shopping...everywhere.. Where we were, Bo was... We had so much love finally of this dog... It took some effort but my feeling was right, there was something he had a problem with, it was not in his character to demolish....
Then after 2,5 years then fate struck. Bo was not feeling well and we got to the veterinarian. They did some research on his blood and stuff, and he turned out to have acute leukemia. It was like somebody hit us in the face. we were devastated..... We didn't know what to do.. According to the veterinarian he could live some months but he wasn't getting old..... So we went home with some medicine and try to make the best possible days for Bo... But he was getting more sick every day. At a certain stage of his illness he couldn't control his bladder anymore, so I moved to the couch to take care of him at night.. I walked him several times a night...
Then the moment came where we had to decide if we let him suffer more (feeling selfish) of bring him to sleep and free him from more suffering....Of course we decided that it was for the best for Bo to stop te suffering although the little sweetheart still was cheerfull..... It was the most difficult decission of our lives and I can't remember being so devistated of anything else to say goodbye to Bo.... He got to get only 4 years old...way to young.... But he still has that special place in our heart and every now and then (like now) I think of him and what a great and wonderfull 'kid of the family' he was...
I close this post with some pictures of Bo.
Bo together with Boris, the dog of my parents in law
Bo when he was already weakend by his disease
My big shiney friend....
Thank you for reading
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