04 Dec 2009, Posted by alaJoann in Dogs,Reader Submitted, 0 Comments

FlossyBoots: Lost Puppy Who Wriggles Into Heart of Dog Agnostic

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…

Around August 2008, during a wild thunder storm, I heard a noise in the back garden. Looking out, I saw something thrashing about in the bushes beside the boundary fence. I went to investigate. There was a puppy with it’s leg stuck in the fence, struggling in the storm to free itself.

I crawled in and released it. It disappeared up the garden in the rain. I figured it had got in somehow, so it would probably get back out and find it’s way home.

An hour later I looked out onto the back deck and there was this rather large, wet, black puppy snuggled up asleep on my own dog’s cushion. I phoned my husband to ask him if he’d seen it around before. All he said was, “Don’t feed it!”

Puppy Claims Swatter Rights

The puppy stayed put at ours and showed no intention of going anywhere. She was skin and bone, with some injuries which I put down to the storm and being lost, but she was lovely. I began to feed her and at first it was like feeding time at the zoo.

She’d hunker down over her food growling and snarling through the glass door at my little old dog and even me. Food was a bit of an issue for her as were brooms, sticks, sudden noises, men, cars and all kinds of other things.

Dilemma #1: Stray Must Be Turned In

She had quite a limp as her front leg was injured. I got the vet to call around and check it. She told me that I was obliged to hand her to the dog shelter as she was a stray, and it seemed she wasn’t chipped or registered.

She also said the pup was around 8-10 weeks old and suprised me by saying it looked like a pure bred rottweiler.

Worried about having to hand her in, I went around the neighbourhood door knocking to find some clues about her. Nobody had reported her missing to the local vets or the lost dogs home, which I thought odd if she were a pedigree dog.

Dilemma #2: Bikie Owner

Well, I found the owner, and it explained both her condition and her fear (also her injuries). Her “owner” was a bikie who lived a couple of streets away and who had got her as a guard dog. Seems his plan was to make her savage and her fear of brooms and sticks came from being beaten over the head.

The “injuries” I thought were from the fence were cigarette burns, and the injured leg was from where she had been chained to a post by her leg, before getting free.

Bit of a dilemma. He wasn’t very nice and now he wanted his investment back. He said he’d paid $700 for her and was going to breed her. Hmmmm I thought, not if I have anything to do with it.

I told him she was injured and the vet fees had cost me close to $500. I also said the vet had said if I found the owner they wanted to be notified so they could send the Council around to inspect the premises and fine the owner as the dog wasn’t registered. (Little white lies).

I then told a bit of an off white lie, saying my brother was a policeman and had also expressed an interest in visiting the owner should I find them. We haggled – he took $200 and the pup was mine. One bikie down, now for the difficult customer, my husband the dog agnostic.

Dilemma #3: Husband

No way were we keeping the dog. A Rottweiler! Vicious breed, unreliable due to her past treatment, not to be trusted. She’d grow too big, dig holes, tear the washing off the line, bark all night, destroy the yard, kill my old dog. Yes dear.

Meanwhile – as she wasn’t staying – we hadn’t named her. I got into the habit of referring to her as FlossyBoots. Which is sort of like ThingamyBob, a name when you don’t have a name.

So Flossy started to grow, in size and on us. She was gorgeous, but still scared of her own shadow. She never wagged her tail for the first couple of months we had her. It stayed permanently jammed between her legs.

I took photos and tried to find a home for her with somebody I knew, but no takers. As time went on my husband stopped harping on about not keeping her, and I often found him sitting with her talking to her, trying to make her less scared.

Kennel of Her Own

About 3 months after she arrived I’d been to a concert in the vineyards with some girlfriends and when I came home and he’d made her a kennel (insulated) to replace the original cushion she had slept on from that first day.

She was now so large that we had added another 3 cushions to it but she was still hanging over the edges. That cushion was her security blanket, and into the kennel it went. Would she? No way.

We put tiny teddy (her little mini friend) in there. She went in and removed him, with a glare at us.

Finally, I figured out that she was scared of the confined space. So we filled in the front and chopped out the side. Success. As the weather got colder we put a perspex front on it so she didn’t feel trapped inside and could see us inside through the glass doors.

Her Brother’s Keeper

My other little dog is a terrier and nearing 18 years and for the first few months I watched Flossy like a hawk in case she went for him as she grew more confident. But she was always gentle and respectful of him. Making sure not to tread on him or bulldoze over him.

He’s deaf now and she has learned to fetch him if he can’t hear me calling. She takes his lead if we’re at the park and strangers or other dogs approach and she marches him firmly by the lead back into the house from the car when we return home from anywhere. As if to say and that’s where you belong!

Tail Wags

She gradually stopped being frightened too. As she became secure with us and realised she was our dog and was staying here she started to wag her tail and generally lighten up a bit.

Now, she’s 18 months old and is a really joyful dog. She never stops wagging her tail and has a massive range of sounds she uses to express her happiness. People are often suprised when we say she’s a rottie, as she has a sort of happy goofy look when she’s out enjoying herself.

Doggie Comedian

She does a few really funny things.

1. As soon as I begin cooking dinner, she lays on her back on the floor with her feet under her chin and wants raw spaghetti. True! She did it one night as a pup and we laughed and now it’s a ritual.

She cruches up raw strands of spaghetti laying on her back and it’s hilarious.

2. If you give her an empty toilet roll or paper towel cylinder she puts it in her mouth and parades around the house making noises through it like a trumpet.

If you recall doing that as a kid you know it amplifies the sound inside you. Flossy makes deep growling sounds through the tube and obviously finds it as entertaining as we do.

3. Nigella. From the dog who couldn’t get enough food and who I was actually frightened to go near when she was eating for a time, we now have a gourmet on our hands.

I make the dogs food. In one batch I put frozen peas … Flossy picks every pea out of her dinner one by one, also pieces of carrot, then places them beside the bowl then begins to daintily and slowly eat. If she has smelled chicken wings or necks, forget eating dinner. She just waits until she gets the fresh food, or goes hungry.

Doggie Kleptomaniac

One of her other little foibles is to steal clothes. Not from us, but the neighbours.

She goes through the fence, into their house (they like her and make her welcome), but often comes home with t shirts, shoes, underwear, hats and the other day a musical teddy.

Recently I saw her coming down the back garden with what in the distance looked like a dead cat hanging from her mouth. Panic stations. It was a black padded bra from next door. The straps hanging had looked like legs in the distance.

She places these items in her kennel or occassionally buries them under leaves around the yard. Nothing is ever chewed or destroyed, just collected.

We haven’t figured that behaviour out yet. Once a week we take the box of belongings back next door and have a chuckle.

Noble and True

So FlossyBoot’s life turned around and so did ours. Contrary to what my husband believed, Flossy has never dug a hole, chewed anything, barked with no cause or had to be chastised for being naughty.

She can be confidently taken out without a lead, and will stay beside you and return immediately when called.

Ken takes her everywhere with him in the back of the pickup. She comes visiting friends’ houses as she is just so perfectly behaved, and is a major star at the local dog beach where everyone knows her as the gentle giant.

Weighing in at 40kg’s, she can play with the very smallest dog in a careful gentle way. She always keeps a watchful eye on our old dog to make sure no dogs are getting too close to him. When they do, she simply gets in between them, takes his lead, and moves him away.

Some people reading this might think it was Flossy’s lucky day when she got stuck in our fence. I think it was our lucky day too .

Story submitted by Lindy, from Australia. Both a pet-lover and an entrepreneur, she has a website: Christmas Gifts & Presents 2009, where you can check out the hottest gifts for this holiday season.