The first bit of this is for BurningBridges, who asked for the back story.
Just over a month ago we lost our 4 1/2 year old Lurcher unexpectedly. She's the grey one in the photo below.
She ran out onto a road chasing a fox and got hit by a car. She borke her leg and suffered chest injuries so spent 3 days in doggy ICU before having her leg fixed. At first her leg seemed to be doing well, but 2 weeks after the operation she stopped using it and it was discovered that one of her tendons was damaged.
The broken tendon was her patella tendon, and the specialist told us the best way to repair it was with an implant from the States. So it was ordered in and we waited for it to arrive, then held our breath that C&E would allow it through.
Eventually they did, and on the Friday of half term the kids and I took her up the A40 to have her second operation. The vet rang about 5 to say it had gone really well, she was awake, he was pleased etc etc, then 15 mins later he rang back to say he was very sorry but she had collapsed, stopped breathing for herself and what did we want to do?
We elected to let her go as it wasn't possible to ventilate forever, Obviously it was a big shock to everyone and left us with a bill for 8K worth of treatment ( Check your insurance policies !)
Our other dog has been very sad since the loss of his friend. If only we could explain things to them :(
And we've felt the loss of a second dog as well as missing our girl specifically, so made the decision to take on a rescue sooner rather than later.
We've looked at lots of dogs, all of them lovely but our boy really liked a young collie X from Heathlands and they played together for almost 90 minutes when they met. So we said we'd like him to come and live with us. We had looked for a bitch but our existing dog seems to prefer boys! I'm going to pick him up tomorrow.
He's an unwanted stray from Ireland, about 1 year old, fine with cats, kids and other dogs.
Sorry for the waffle above, but the point is that we've only ever had rescue puppies before, not dogs. He's been with a fosterer for 3 months now so she knows him pretty well and he seemed very calm and friendly when we met him last week. I have his food, a collar and lead, a crate and bed for him as well as toys but what else do I need to know?
The fosterer has sent us his schedule, so we'll try and stick with that to begin with and gradually change it to our usual one. It will be useful with the Easter holidays coming up.
Has anyone who has had a dog from a rescue got any advice for us? We are expecting toilet training to possibly lapse and maybe some crying at night.
I'm a bit nervous!