WCGB - Rescue & Rehoming Success Stories

In 2000 we lost our Weimaraner and I had said for some time that my next would be a Rescue. We were duly vetted by one of your helpers and were asked to take on a male despite always having had bitches. We went to see Oscar at his home in Gloucester, where he was obviously much loved but living in a garage most of the time with a GSP who obviously was getting the lion’s share of any food. My husband went for a walk with the owner and Oscar, who when released into a field, disappeared for 20 minutes until he decided to come back. We found ourselves unable to leave without him and amid much crying on the part of the owners because the dog was going and me because I was taking him away, we loaded Oscar into the back of the car and drove away. The journey was not without incident as Oscar burst through the dog guard which had previously contained two Weimars and proceeded to try to join us in the front of the car. We stopped and I moved into the back seat where I held on to him for the rest of the journey.

On arrival in the house Oscar did what comes naturally and ’watered’ as many pieces of furniture as possible! In the first two weeks of his life with us he learned to settle in and crawl under the fence at the bottom of the garden to join the dog who lived there. On the subsequent trip to the store to look at suitable 6ft fencing he managed to escape from the car and follow us into the store where he was ‘captured’. On our exit we were met by two workers who had him by the collar. We owned up to him being ours and on arriving back at the car were convinced it had been broken into as there was no glass in the driver’s side window. On further examination we could find no broken glass and realised that he had jumped on the electric window button in his panic at being left, wound the window down and jumped out. For some time after until we changed the car and replaced the dog guard we had to leave a very plump cushion over the buttons and wait in the car until the timing mechanism kicked in and the windows could not be opened.

He also lived up to his image of ‘grey ghost’ when, at dusk, he squeezed around a fence pole during the erection of the fence, got into the neighbouring plot and jumped up at the kitchen window terrifying the lady of the house. One of his other tricks was to squeeze out of the front door before you and visit any house in the cul-de-sac which happened to have a door open at the time. I think most of the neighbours had a visit at one time or another.

Oscar was a great food thief. Nothing could be left in a shopping bag or on a work surface with any degree of safety. We found butter still in the wrapper buried in the potato patch, the bread bin was for display purposes only as the bread was always in Oscar’s basket and one night I jumped, naked, into bed with half a dozen rashers of raw bacon – that gave me a shock! Oscar very rarely ate what he stole, he either secreted it (he thought) in his basket or down the side of the sofa or he brought it as a gift to me and buried it under my duvet. I always knew he had been up to something by his ‘inside out’ ears and the nest he had made from the bed-linen! We also found out what a good egg carrier he was when four disappeared from a carton deliberately left right at the back of the range where he supposedly could not reach them. Two were quickly discovered unbroken on the stairs and the two missing ones were in one of Oscar’s nests in the bed. Despite all the nosing and pawing which must have gone on to hide them, they also were unbroken.

In 2001 my husband moved to Hong Kong with his job and I decreed that it was no place for Oscar and I would therefore have to stay here with him and travel to visit my husband as there was no way that Oscar would become a ‘rescue’ again. He was ours now and we were in it for the duration – besides, where would he find someone else as dippy as me to love him! Our relationship grew stronger and stronger as the years passed and the in-laws (father-in-law wasn’t a particular fan of dogs – until he met Oscar) came to look after him in the house every time I needed to travel to Hong Kong (Oscar hated kennels) and I was asked not to take him to the local ‘Dog Hotel’ again as he was a disruptive influence on the other animals. Father-in-law was quite proud of him and they walked for miles together around the villages, even allowing him to get on the sofa beside him in the evenings. Oscar could be a bit of a bully to some other dogs (one black Labrador in particular) which led to a spat between father-in-law (who defended Oscar to the hilt) and the other owner, so we took the painful decision to have him castrated (Oscar that is).

As a result of our unusual living arrangements, my husband and I unfortunately separated for a time. Seven years on I am still standing and it is all thanks to the support and love of one dog. Oscar couldn’t cope with tears or sniffles and would always jump on me to stop me breathing so that I couldn’t cry or sniff. He always cuddled up beside me on the sofa and liked nothing better than to climb onto the bed and lie back to back with me until he pushed me off the edge of the bed and I had to get out and go round to the other side to climb back in!

During visits home by my husband we all three went to stay in lovely country house hotels where he was welcome. We can particularly recommend the Nare and Budock Vean in Cornwall and Lake Vrnwy in North Wales. He loved the beach but preferred the woods; he learned to ignore the tortoise climbing on him. He also learned to shake baby birds out of the trees in the garden and to bring them to me – sometimes alive, occasionally dead.

As the years passed he calmed down and took all the attention he received from strangers in an aloof way which said “I’ve heard it all before – I know I’m a handsome boy”.

Oscar always had the ‘Weimaraner tummy’ – sensitive to fat and prone to bloat, but as someone wrote in Weimaraner News recently – caught quickly the grumbling could be stopped with a piece of mature cheddar and we made several trips to the vet at inappropriate times of the night usually on Bank Holidays. His last event just before Christmas was accompanied by a cough which had started to worry me, but because he was an emergency tummy case, my mention of the cough was linked to that. When he was well I decided to take him to ask about the cough and on investigation (x-ray) the vet announced we had opened a ‘can of worms’ because these showed a bulge on his heart which they could not explain. The x-ray went to a cardiologist who thought it was of no consequence. At this point (February 2008) his lungs were clear and black on the x-ray. A month later with the cough still in evidence another x-ray showed the bulge on the heart was gone but there were now what appeared to be white star-bursts in his lungs and although his lungs were washed, no cells were found to culture. He was tremendously thirsty and was weeing almost pure water. It was suggested that he had cancer but there was no sign of a primary tumour. Approximately two weeks later the x-ray showed the lungs were almost white. His breathing was fast and shallow, his back legs had become wobbly and he wouldn’t eat but his spark was still there – he still loved his walks, his cuddles and as recently as a week ago he tried to take off after a deer which crossed our path. He still pulled for the door at the vet’s. My options were given as invasive techniques to try to get a diagnosis or palliative care to give a better quality of life for what time remained. I chose the latter and he was put on Baytril, prednisolone and ceporex. We had a last trip to The Nare in Cornwall complete with boxes of chicken, rice, pasta, fish and all he would eat was Cornish pasty! He was indulged, every whim was met. I spent my nights listening to his breathing and worrying and wondering and when he coughed, getting up and taking him downstairs to get some fresh air in the garden. On Thursday night/Friday morning 1st/2nd May I think I realised that Oscar needed to “go home” and yesterday morning I made the hardest decision of my life and held him while his life ebbed away. I kissed him and cuddled him and stroked him and thanked him and told him that I loved him and that in the end I had never been able to do as much for him as he had done for me.

Already the world is a much quieter place, much lonelier, empty. The tears flowed at the vet’s, in Sainsbury’s this morning, in the village shop, even now as I write this. I look at his empty bed, his cuddly toy – now sporting his old collar, his empty food bowls and his blankets and I feel as though my heart has broken. Could I have kept him alive longer, would he have wanted me to? Questions I know I will ask myself for the rest of my life despite assurances from the Vet that this was the most humane thing to do for Oscar. I have so many happy memories of him but at the moment they don’t help.

I believe Oscar was sent to me to see me through the hard times over the past 8 years and I am eternally grateful for the wonderful gift of Oscar’s life. I also thought that you might like to know what happens to your rescues in the long term.

Thank you Rescue – without you and your wonderful work, Oscar and I would never have met.

Yours sincerely

Kathryn Preston

Rescue and Rehoming

Success Stories

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