The Start…a voyage into the unknown
Whilst Bernard, the hero of my stories, is not a rescue dog, I was never going to write a story about a dog who had no ‘issues’.
Owning a rescue dog for over 8 years now has certainly been a ‘journey’ and on many levels for us, a journey into the unknown. We had to work out why part of Milo’s ear was missing and why he had scars on his neck? Why, when we let him in the garden for the first time he wouldn’t walk on the grass?
Milo came to us with a largely unknown past. I wasn’t planning on getting another dog so soon after losing my beloved Jack, but the rescue centre was desperate after the festive period, so I was at Pets at Home on the 2nd of Jan 2015 busily getting ready for Milo’s arrival. He arrived dirty and scrawny the next day. He was hyper, wouldn’t leave my side and then when my daughter ran a bath he was petrified.
All the unknown bits of Milo’s life we were going to have to piece together. We had only had dogs from the puppy stage before so this was a very different experience. We quickly learnt we were going to have to be very patient with each other and work things out as we went along…
We realised we would have to try extra hard to see the world through his eyes:
‘Ok, it’s not that he doesn’t like grass, he’s just probably never had a garden to play in before.’ His fear of water? I don’t really want to dwell on why that might have been, but we knew there would be a reason. My fear was whether we would be able to really gain his trust and understand enough of his previous life to reassure him that this life was going to be very different from now on…