Bit of background to explain our situation:
22 March 2017 - myself and my boyfriend, Tony, collected our puppy from the shelter about 90 mins away. They said he was approx 9 weeks. Mum and litter of 10 were from rescued from the local pound. Mum was a lurcher and all the pups looked like collies, so we can only assume dad was a collie! For the first few days all was as you would expect from a puppy - confined to the kitchen with me all day, peed everywhere (except outside!), and he slept in an open crate in a puppy pen, outside our open bedroom door (to give him the security of us being there, but we were trying to be "strict" and not having him in the room with us).
24 March - He got his second injections (but still confined for 7 days) - weight 3.1Kg.
Found his teeth about 5 days in, again normal, terrorised me all day by nipping at my trousers, etc. We would spend time in the back garden playing and sometimes just napping (we had a random few days of sun in the UK/Ireland), and I took him out the front on his lead.
1 April - he was able to go out as normal, so we tried to take little walks in our estate, but he just wanted to sniff everything and wasn't really interested! I had read a lot online (especially here) about how to train a puppy, but he had pretty much zero concentration or ability to even listen to me. He was also starting to get pretty distressed when he was in the pen and I left the room (even for like a minute to use the downstairs loo!) So I rang a trainer to try to prevent future problems by us learning how to best deal with his behaviour and literally how to train him!
5 April - trainer had a 2 hour session in our house - his concentration was amazing! And she told us that him being with me all day wasn't good for him and he should be spend much more alone time in our garden. (2 hour in morning and 1 hour in afternoon, and another hour of me out of the house and he was in his pen/crate - with no gradual "build up" - just put him outside and ignore him
). I was a bit skeptical about this as he was still very young (and not that smart - he would run into chair legs, and wouldn't always take corners wide enough and hit into the cupboards), but I figured she knew her stuff. He also went for his first puppy groom that afternoon.6 April - around 11.30am I finally decided to suck it up and Tony put Charlie out the back. Charlie was severely not amused and made sure that we (and half the neighbourhood) knew this - barking all over the place and generally being very moody (not so much distressed like when I would leave him inside), he was also hanging around the glass back door, as if to remind us he was out there. Tony went upstairs and I made tea, he came back down and we were talking about screws (of all things!) when we heard Charlie basically scream. No other words can describe that noise! The two of us nearly went through the door to get out to him, and he was running in little circles holding his back left leg up. Cleverly I told Tony he would need to look at his leg! Poor wee mite, still screaming and howling, lashed out and bit Tony about 4 times. Something I had read online just popped into my head and I told Tony to ring the vet and grabbed his blanket off the ground and used it to throw around him and lift him. Rushed him down to the vet, still screaming like crazy and he snapped at the vet as well, and the vet reached into his cupboard and took out the tiniest muzzle I have ever seen and got Tony to put it on to wee Charlie, while I stood in the corner with the tears just streaming down my face! Vet couldn't even examine his leg as he was in so much pain, so he had to be given a general anesthetic to be examined and x-rayed. Went home to wait for news and walking into the kitchen and seeing his empty pen and his toys all over the place just broke my heart.
We also look properly in the garden and worked out he caught his leg between the railing and the side of concrete slope for disabled access (built by the previous house owners) and had then twisted and pulled to get his leg back up. He had spiral fracture his hind left femur, and needed urgent surgery, so we had to take him to Belfast (an hour away) to another vets. Weight in Belfast vet - 4.73Kg.7 April - Surgery #1 - went well with a plate instered and relying on his young bones healing quickly to hold it properly
9 April - got a phone call from the Vet at 8.30pm on a Sunday night - due to his "activity levels in his cage" Charlie had loosened the pins in his leg
10 April - Surgery #2 went well and he had an external frame fitted to his leg along with the pin in the bone
12 April - Dressing changed and discovered minor infection of external pin site, so they wanted to keep him an extra few days to give him antibiotics
15 April - Dressing change #2 infection was worse and pins had been "biologically loosened" and were removed. Vet warned us that things weren't looking good about being able to save the leg.
19 April - Infection still bad (instead of clearing up) - we now had two options: 1) remove leg now or 2) send Charlie home with a broken leg, for 2 weeks to let infection clear, he wouldn't be allowed to walk except out to the toilet, and then have about another 3 operations to attempt to fix it, with risks of growth plates being damage and him having a short leg that won't grow or muscles and bones fusing together and him not being able to bend it, etc, and a pretty big risk that 2/3/4 months down the line, he would still need to have the leg removed. For us it was an easy decision, remove the leg now, no risk of the infection spreading to the rest of him and he can get back to being a puppy, rather than forcing him to go through many more days and nights in the vet and surgeries that may or may not work.
20 April - leg amputated and while it wasn't an ideal outcome for a puppy, it went well
21 April - wound was technically healing well, etc but due to his crazy nature, they wanted to keep him over the weekend in case he got to his staples around his cone and at least they could deal with it quickly!
24 April - we got him home!
14 days at home and then 17 days in the vets, but it was like he never left!25 April - discovered an added bonus to his little trip away - he was now toilet trained to use puppy pads! (Not ideal obviously, but it meant a lot less cleaning up of puddles!). He was managing fine without his leg, his cone on the other hand was a problem - he never managed to realised how wide he really was with it on! His crate also got put away as he couldn't manage to turn around inside it with the cone on and after on time of getting a little distressed, we didn't want him to become afraid of the crate because he got stuck! So his bed was just in his pen, and lots of extra blankets as he wasn't to lie on a hard surface just to protect and cushion the wound and staples (and wounds from the previous surgeries).
27 April - we took him to a Socialisation Class (that we had originally booked before he had his accident) and he totally loved it! There was enough other things going on that we took his cone off and he never looked towards his wound. We held him a lot, but gave him a lot of little bursts of running around, and even while we held him, the other dogs would come up and they would have a bit of a play! Due to his injections, age, Tony working, etc and where we live, he hadn't been properly off lead before his accident, so I had no idea he could run that fast. You can really see the bit of greyhound/lurcher in him - the huge long strides and his ears almost disappear into his head!
1 May - me and my brother (he's 14) took Charlie to a Charity Fun Day at the dog park (from his class) and he had a blast, made friends with a few great danes! And he got 3rd Place in the Best Rescue!
He also got carried around my me a lot cuz he got very visibly tired and wobbly on his back leg. Even in the house, as the vet told us to make sure he rests 95% of the time, I would spend a lot of time down on the blankets, cuddling him, giving him scratches, holding his Kong as it couldn't reach it with his paws, having him lying on my knee, etc just anything to keep him entertained but not standing. Gradually we worked him up little by little each day, and also taught him "lie down" and "stay" to get him to lie down on the blankets and stay there if we walked to the other side of the room, instead of him following us around!3 May - staples out and finally rid of the lovely cone! So we celebrated by having lunch in town with my Mum (leaving Tony and Charlie to chill outside in the sunshine!
) Vet weighed him - 6KgSo that is where we are now. While he had the staples in, my attitude was, training/rules are taking a back seat as the priority is to keep the staples in and the wound clean and secure! (I knew we can train him later, but an infected wound, etc would cause a lot more problems that a "spoilt" dog!) Now the he is basically "back to normal" following everything, the main issue we have is his separation anxiety. When I leave him in his pen in the kitchen to go to the toilet (off the kitchen) he will work himself into such a state, tear up his puppy pad, wee everywhere, tear at blankets and toys and attach his jaw around the bars of the pen. It's totally different than before his surgery - that was more an attitude type objection "how dare you leave me alone", now it is more "oh s**t, you have gone, I can't see you, you have left me, I'm gonna be alone forever" type scared reaction. How do we start to combat this, in a way that isn't distressing to him (or me!)?
Also by way of general training, Charlie is now approx 14 weeks - what should he be able to do, or what should we be trying to teach him? If the truth be told, nothing we have taught him is 100% reliable (ie, he sits first time - it could take a while before he does it, or he may just decide to not bother), but he is definitely getting there! It's actually pretty cute to see his little head **** to the side and his ears twitching as he is listen - you can almost see the thought process before he reacts!!
So far he understands, sit, stay, lie down, go to bed and he can come (sometimes) when called.Also does anyone know "ideal" or "recommended" weights for lurcher/collies? Our vet advised us to "watch his weight" due to his 3 legs, but how do you know what is too big? Especially in a growing puppy? Also what about extra support for him - we obviously still want to be able to talk him out and do all the normal things you can with a dog - walks and trips, etc, but he won't be able to walk the same amount as a "normal" puppy/dog - should we just basically not go out, or have people experiences of using say a doggie pushchair, as I can just about carry him now - I won't have any hope in a few weeks or months!
Sorry for the super long post - it has just been a pretty emotional 6 weeks!!
Thank you in advance for any help or advice anyone can give! Laura & Crazy Charlie!
) so if something does get overwhelming or scary, take him away from it, and ideally have a positive experience as soon as possible.
I'm wondering if we actually need to do that now, as new members are now vetted before being approved. (Emmabeth, what do you think?)