Elsa was a lovely dog, she was 6 months old when we rehomed her. She was a part trained gun dog so she was totally obsessed with retrieving a ball. If we had the ball in the house on the table or the kitchen side, she would literally stare at it until you moved it. Or she would bring it to you and drop it on your knee and stare at the ball and back at you! We had her off lead on the first day she was with us and she was so good. I felt very lucky at finding her. We asked the gamekeeper we got her from if she would suit a pet home and he said she would as she was only part trained and had been brought up in a family environment as a puppy. Her and Ben got on great, lots of play fighting on the garden and cuddling up to sleep together.
Elsa started to be very protective of her ball on walks with other dogs. She would go for a dog if they attempted to come near her with her ball. We started walking her without her ball and she was brilliant with the other dogs.
The very hard decision to rehome this beautiful girl came after her and Ben were playing one day, and all of a sudden Elsa started to attack Ben, we couldn't stop her with our voices and Ben was sort of attacking her back. Hubby managed to pry them apart. Ben jumped onto the sofa out the way and lifted his paw up. I went to him and saw that Elsa's teeth and sliced above his paw and it looked liked it was hanging off. We rushed Ben to the vets and he was sedated for stiches. There were also tooth punctures on the back of his paw. I was so upset. From then on it was like living on egg shells, Ben wasn't the same, he wouldn't get up on the sofa when Elsa was there and seemed to be very wary of her. They still played with each other as normal. The decision came when we were eating dinner one evening a few weeks after the first fight and Ben moved on their dog bed and Elsa just launched on him. He wasn't injured but was scared. So we decided that day and I remember crying most of that night. Managing two aggressive dogs was just too hard, I felt like I was giving up on her but her issues were fully explained to her new owner and he had experience with rescue dogs. He also went on shoots for leisure so wanted a dog to train up as a gun dog as well as living as part of the family. We felt this was ideal for Elsa.
I am going to leave it there as I don't want to get myself upset, but I will never forget Elsa and I know she has a good home and is happy.
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