Hello, I used to post here a couple years back and I have decided that I need some advice from the dog community.
A couple months ago I was given a skinny and emaciated Dalmatian from a guy(Scott) who lives next door to me. The Dalmatian had belonged to his friend (mark) who adopted if from a shelter and didn't have the time of day to care for him, so Scott took him. We asked about Ein because he looked as if he needed medical care and the guy said we could have him. I already had a dog that I kept at my parents named Annie, but was not quiet ready to take on one at my own place. I decided that I take him and and keep him on a 20' dog tie out that I used for Annie's long distance obedience training. (I was a youth leader in the 4-H dog project and have trained a couple dogs before). I bought a dog house and the immediate equipment needed to care for a dog, I planned on searching for a kennel for him in the Classified ads of the newspaper.
It wasn't long until I had started to work with him because he had had no training and bad manners. He liked to jump up and grab hands when playing. I started to teach him to heal on leash, and brought him to a couple dog training classes for socialization. I took him to a vet a couple days after we got him and found out he had a nasty case of worms. We treated him for that but something still didn't seem quiet right. so we brought him back to the vet again to find out he had Pneumonia, we again, treated him for that.
I had to stop his training when I was was a passenger in a rollover accident and was bed-ridden. Towards the end of July, a couple days after I got out of the hospital, I came home to find Ein missing... I immediately called the police and they informed me that they had him in the pound and that they had picked him up an hour or so earlier. When I got him back from the officer, I looked at the tie out and told him that to me it looked as if it had been cut. My reasoning being that the point of break was directly below the clip that goes on to his collar, and that none of the rest of the tie out was damaged in anyway. (no fraying) I asked the officer if it looked cut to him and he shrugged and said it just looked frayed, got in his car and left without further discussion. At the time I had on hand another tie out that was slightly thicker.. so I put him out on that and started to search harder for a kennel.
A couple days later, Ein was missing again... (I was sleeping when this happened). Yet again, the tie out broke in the same spot only this time it was clearly a clean cut. My boyfriend called the police and picked Ein up from the pound and showed the officer the cut, yet again, they did nothing about it. Since then he has been over at my parents in one of their kennels until I can find one.
Last night, Shane received a call from a guy claiming that the last time our dog was loose he jumped on a lady and knocked her down. She walked to the hospital and found that she had a broken hip. We had heard the story before only the dog in the rumor was a German short hair, not a dalmatian. They asked us if we had a certain form of insurance to cover her medical costs, in which I don't currently hold any insurance, not even to cover the medical bills I have received from my accident.
I feel horrible thinking that my dear Ein could do such a thing... I guess, I am typing this in hopes of some advice, maybe someone how has gone through something similar, or what you would do in my position.. and probably just to get this horror off my chest... any advice would be helpful...
