In the 90's we ended up with a rather messed up Bearded Collie. My sister had this RichardHEAD living with her and they left, and left behind Buster.
We would visit my sister and this dirty, matted looking dog would be under or behind anything it could squash its body into/under. I swear hed squash into a gap that was 5 CM high(slight exaggeration but damn).. somehow. You would go near him and he would physically start shaking and if you touched him he might urinate. Really don't know what these gits did to him but they hurt him both physically and mentally. Vet told us that he had broken ribs at some point and they hadn't been seen to. Just left to fix themselves.
My dad who seen how bad he was brought him home and told the gits when they came to the house that they would have a fight on their hands if they want to take this dog away! At this point you would only have to say the word bath to make Buster urinate where he stood. Brushing his wonderful fur was an impossibility and mostly looked like he was a rasta dog.
I do have a picture somewhere, Il try and find it. On the picture you can see how on his fur, on the back of his legs is yellow. That was because he either was in too much pain in the past to lift his leg up to urinate and it just got to be habbit, or was tortured from such a young age that he never learned that cocking his leg was something that he needed to do.
My dads place in the living room, The chair near the window, next to the gas cupboard, always you would find buster there. You would hardly ever see him anywhere else in the house whilst my dad was home. When mum and dad went on holiday and I stayed home Buster would houl like crazy and I had to carry him into my room and close the door for him to stop. Eventually he got the idea and I left the door open for him. I would wake up with fur in my face, him sat on the pillows above my head.
Going back to subject a little. We could never let Buster off the lead. He would go after any dog and go straight for its neck. We knew this was totally out of character for the type of dog he was and left us wondering if he was made to fight other dogs(or was being trained that way) Few years down the line, he snapped out of it a little and was safe to let off the lead but always, ALWAYS had to keep a diligent eye.
So. Buster is long since passed. I don't recall the year. But the vet said he outlasted his sell by date by a few years. We like to think that after giving him the life he deserved he just didn't want to go on his way. He had a couple of strokes and then passed a few months down the line.
Damn. That was a long story. Oops, and I just been to work typing constantly for four hours!
