[ad_1]
John Roussety wasn’t expecting to rescue a dog when he and his friends were caught in a summer rain storm. But that’s exactly what happened when he spotted a small dog huddled in a doorstep. He shared his rescue story with DogHeirs.com and it’s as heartwarming a story as can be.
From our “Rescue Dogs are Family archive” comes this story of Bosco, a tiny dog who became this man’s best friend.
“I found this little guy shivering on a doorstep in a downpour back in Summer of 1999. He was painfully thin, covered in mange had eye and ear infections and was so matted that we thought he had a club foot.
“My friends grabbed me a blanket to wrap him in and brought me a can of Chum to feed him while they drove us to the RSPCA’s Harmsworth Hospital.
“By the time we’d driven the 5 miles there my then wife, Becca had named him ‘Bosco’ and had decided we were going to keep him.
“I’d looked into those sad beautiful deep brown eyes and seen a little soul who needed someone to love him and look after him – I couldn’t disagree with her.
“We handed him in and took his reference number to follow him up.
“They patched him up and sent him to Battersea a few days later. We’d already called and asked to be considered for his new parents and when we went there we went to visit him twice while he spent the necessary days to make sure he didn’t have an owner.
“About 10 days after we’d found him he came home with us.
“He and I were inseparable.
“He was just the most amenable little dog I have ever come across – no trouble at all. he was already house trained and never chased cats, had instant recall – I couldn’t have asked for a lovelier little friend.
“He used to come to work with me two or three days a week, and would often accompany me to the pub to meet friends too.
“Becca and I split up in 2002 and Bosco came with me. I guess I formed an even stronger bond with him at that time.
“I was living at my mother’s house in the interim (she loved him so much that she went and rescued a Shih Tzu of her own once we moved out) and it was there that he had the accident that probably eventually led to his early demise.
“He was playing with my little brother one day – standing on the sofa on his hind legs dancing for a tidbit. He fell backwards and landed on his spine. He was paralysed and completely knocked out. We rushed him 180 degrees around the M25 to the RCVS in St Albans where the top animal neurologist in the country attended him.
“Bosco was there for 5 days and I drove the 40 miles each way every day to visit him every one of those days.”
“The first two days he couldn’t even hold his head up and we feared the worst, but the third day, after some hydrotherapy, he managed to hold his head up. By the 5th day he was moving his legs when they put him in the pool and he was able to come home with me.
“He recovered slowly but his front right paw never fully regained sensation – he used to drag it so he would wear a little leather shoe to protect his claws from wearing down to the quick.
“But he never seemed to mind – or even notice. But as he got a little older he got less energetic and just liked to sleep almost all the time. I think his condition had started to tell on him.”
“He was eventually diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease and finally – after a couple of years of drugs and slowing down more and more I took him for an MRI scan when it appeared his motor functions were starting to go. The found that he had both types of Cushing’s – not only the operable tumor on the adrenal gland, but also one on the pituitary gland in the base of the brain.
“The vet suggested I could try chemo on him but there was no way that I could put my best friend through that.
“It was a hard thing to do but a simple decision to make.”
“After one more night at home so my girlfriend could say goodbye to him, I took him along to the vets. I couldn’t leave him so I held him on my arms as the vet gave him the shot and he slipped away instantly and painlessly.
“I have never been so sad about anything ever.
“It took me 8 months before I was able to consider taking on another little one but I now have Molly and she is all my joy.
“But I do still really miss my little Boz. I loved that dog like you can’t believe.
~ Submitted by John Roussety
