I remember seeing Scooby’s face for the first time on a
website that helped dogs in pounds in the midlands, he was scrunched up in the
back of the dog wardens van, and there was just something about him. He was due
to be destroyed as he was aggressive in the kennels, but his story was pretty
horrific. He had been left chained to a tree in a garden, and when a neighbour
offered to help the dog warden he explained the dog was blind in one eye
because his owner had stabbed him through the eye with a screwdriver. To the
day he died he had an in and an out scar just below and above his eye. After
some serious discussions, interviews with the local authorities I was allowed
to take save him. However it was on the understanding that he was never to be
rehomed, and that I travelled to pick him up.
Scooby was snarling and snapping when I met him, they used
to jam him behind the door of the kennel so they could quickly swish a mop
around to clean him out. Hot dogs won him over, and for the first time in seven
days I got him outside. Things were going really well till he tried to climb in
the back of my jeep, and when I touched his backend he attacked me. He bit me
again on the leg, he was so far go in a state of defence, that it took us 4
hours to encourage him into a crate so we could carry him into the car. The
lead I’d put on him that day took a week and a half to get close enough to get
it off.The work that followed would take up too much of your time to read on here, but Scooby learnt to trust me. He became my dog at the kennels, there was even a joke that all that was missing from his kennel was a nice photo of me and him. He became the stooge dog, a calming influence when we were socialising dogs with other dogs, but above all he was alive and happy.
Old age caught up with him in the end, a tumour bursting internally ended a relationship on this earth that had done so much good. I remember the vet crying as he slipped away, so dramatic had been the turn around in the dog that was uncontrollable when he’d first met him.
Nobody that has been involved with SHAK will ever forget Scooby,
least of all me. He showed me so much, and the majority of dogs in the rescue
wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t showed me the way.
The words “Love Replaces Fear” written on our new style t shirts could of been
especially written for my true inspiration.
