Our fist dog when I was growing up was a toy black poodle, called Mitzi. Then we had a Golden Retriever and a Great Dane, followed by 2 stunning Lassie type Collies, who both died within months of eah other - cancer. The Great Dane I remember had terrible wind, he could vacate a room in 2 seconds flat. I remember my mum and me watching telly once, and both of us jumped up quickly as the noxious fumes rose to get us. We ended up getting stuck in the door together, Laurel and Hardy style.
Cats have dominated my life since leaving University, much to husbands chagrin as he is allergic to them. He did agree, however, to us getting a dog about 8 years ago, and that was when we got Buffy, our temperamental golden Cocker. She had personality difficulties - we bought her from a lady who had only one litter as she thought it would be nice to have a litter, before she had her dog spayed. Clearly, she knew very little about raising puppies and Buffy was housed outside with little contact with people, as part of a large litter. She was 18 weeks when we had her. She was an extreme food, toy, bed guarder and bit both my stepchildren badly, causing stitches in the forehead and under the chin, due to food and ball guarding. Puppy classes were very stressful. We then saw a dog psychologist, David Appleby at the Uni (he wouldn't come to the house), who recommended leaving high quality, but dried food down and giving free feeding to reduce the value of it to her, this worked. However, she then started lashing out at strangers, other dogs, and us - for no discernable reason. We had every health test under the sun done.
Training classes were a nightmare, so we stopped them, as she suddenly became very dangerous. At the age of 2, we sent her away for 6 weeks for residential training, despite advice from a knowledgeable Rage Syndrome person, vet and The Breed Club to have her pts . She came back almost a different dog and became more biddable and very much part of the family, still couldn't ever be trusted, and bit both my mum, dad and mother in law, but at least she developed a sense of humour and started enjoying life and some cuddles, rather than grumpily existing. 3 years later she became blind, due to PRA and 2 years later we lost her to skin and lymph cancer, in the space of 3 weeks. She died 6 months ago, aged 7. We were devastated, you see, despite all of this, we loved her unconditionally, due to "the cocker sense of humour".
Only 3 days later, while hubby was working away (and behind his back
) I contacted the breed club who put me in contact with a breeder in Lowestoft and so Angel joined us only 4 days after Buffy's death.
Angel is adorable, and even though we had all those problems with Buffy, we STILL wanted another cocker. She is a very different dog to Buffy, very calm, sweet, good, loving, not food motivated at all - as I type she is sitting beside me with her head resting on my arm.
