Adopting A Dobie Is A Rewarding Experience

A lot of the Dobes we have taken in are older dogs and some others needing experienced Dobie owners so the majority of them will be in kennels for some time.

Even though we have a large number of Dobes to rehome we have not lowered our standards in checking homes and finding the right home for our dogs.

Why is it that everybody wants a 'young' Dobe under a year old? In the last few years I have always taken in older Dobes and despite what many people think they respond to training, easily adapt to a new home and like any Dobe soon make you think they have been with you forever and everything of yours now belongs to them.

Don't the older dogs deserve a chance as well?

Sue Garner

I do agree with Sue Garner regarding older rescue dogs. All our rescues have been in their middle years. Caesar was our first and we got him to try and get Kestral's mind off 'babies'. She seemed to have one long phantom pregnancy so after being spayed and with Caesar's help we succeeded. Kestral and Caesar adored each other and when he died from cancer, she was as devastated, as we all were.

Then along came Kyza, another very large handsome brown boy like Caesar. Kessy liked him but he was scared of her. Kessy was rather bossy but Kyza soon discovered that her bark was worse than her bite. They had some happy years together.

When Kyza also died, we'd already got Kojac and he would not have taken kindly to another male coming along so we decided on a rescue bitch and Sasha joined our household. I had lost my lovely Kessy by then. Kojac and Sasha loved each other and played for hours. Sasha also adored Kloee who was just a baby. Unfortunately for Sasha waiting in the wings to take over from Kessy was Kaylee. Kaylee and Sasha hated on another. I put up with over eighteen months of horrendous fights and tried everything – child gates, water pistols, cap guns, but nothing stopped them trying to kill each other. In the final fight that they had, Sasha nearly did finish Kaylee off. She was our only failure and she left behind a very puzzled Kojac and Kloee but a very secretly pleased Kaylee.

Next to come was Kirsty whom we still have, but Kojac didn't take to her at all and never did. After a while we realised that Kirsty was stone deaf and her eyesight wasn't good either. Finally along came Kasper a sort of rescue, and what a lovely boy he is. It is such a shame his litter brother was allowed to bully him the way he did. Rescue dogs do sometimes come with problems and unfortunately they cannot tell us what they are, but the years of grateful love they give us is worth all that. We have had some wonderful times with our rescues and so if anyone has the chance of taking on an older dog - I say 'GO FOR IT'