Angel Smith

A SPECIAL FAMILY IS TOGETHER AGAIN (19.12.2014)

The news that we have all been dreading came today. Our hearts go out to Aileen who told us “My beautiful guardian Angel went to heaven this morning in her favourite spot in front of the Christmas tree.

Run free sweetheart, you brought us all much joy and we loved you well.”

ANGEL’S HISTORY

In 2008 ANGEL was 7.5 yrs and very well bred. She came over from Ireland with her half-sister, Allie. She is spayed and housetrained and is now microchipped. She pulls a little on the lead but the lady owner could walk them both in the one hand. Angel is great with children, has never been in contact with cats but get on well with other dogs. The aim is to rehome the two girls together. The owner’s circumstances have changed and she can no longer give them the attention they require. They had an overnight stop in Somerset to recover from their journey and are now microchipped.

UPDATES FROM FOSTER MUM, AILEEN

FIRST NIGHT

So far so good! The girls spent a quiet evening taking naps and sometimes coming over to me looking for attention.

Allie is by far the more confident of the two. She loves the duck-toys I bought them and constantly carries them around with her. Angel seems to be afraid of them at the moment!

Allie has now followed me as far as the office this morning. Angel has not ventured farther than the kitchen yet.

Last night Angel’s tail was down all the time, but this morning she has given a few little wags, which is a good sign!

I have ordered the Pulsatilla for Angel.

They don’t like the beds at all, and preferred to sleep on the floor just inside the back door – which is fine of course.

FIRST MORNING

Angel and Allie have now decided that they prefer the hallway instead of the kitchen, because from there they can keep an eye on everything that’s going on, front and back. So that’s their new territory!

Angel has started to come out of her shell considerably now, wagging her tail and she has even picked up her toy a couple of times. I brushed her a little more last night. The black skin is now starting to flake off as you said it would. I’ll keep a careful eye on it.

They had a good bark at my neighbour’s cat last night! (The cat normally would make a nightly excursion through my garden but I think last night she just sat on the fence wondering what on earth was going on)

They slept very well during the night and woke me up this morning barking at the postman (which was good because I had accidentally messed up setting my alarm clock!!!).

LATER THAT DAY

What an adventure we have had!!! These girls are really not very used to being walked on leads. They dragged me halfway up a neighbour’s driveway in hot pursuit of a squirrel!

After about 10 minutes their excess energy dissipated and they were much easier to manage, and in fact I think now they are quite worn out at the end of 3 miles, as I ended up almost dragging them along at the end!

SECOND MORNING

This morning the “alarm clock” bark was at 4.20am – I guess there was a cat or squirrel or something that triggered it, though I can’t see anything significant on the security cameras!

Angel’s oily patch appears to be drying out, but I can’t get a good look at it without Allie poking her nose in(!) so I’ll find some distraction for her later and take my time investigating Angel.

LATER THAT DAY

We’ve been for another long walk today, off the lead for much of it so they got a really good run, and they were very well behaved when I put the leads back on for the section where they were going to have to walk along the road.

TWO DAYS ON

We had a quiet day overall.

Angel is taking her pulsatilla. The oily patch looks a lot better but she doesn’t like me going near it. She’s still pretty shy but seems happy and I get a lot of tail wagging, and she loves hugs.

UPDATE FROM THEIR NOW FOREVER HOME

Aileen, their forever mum says, “Angel and Allie have settled in wonderfully. Barking at night is (thankfully!) a thing of the past. They love having visitors and getting lots of attention. My parents visited for a weekend and the dogs had a wonderful time, going on extra walks, extra grooming sessions etc!”

“Angel’s back is clearing up slowly but surely. I am keeping an eye on her in case she is becoming arthritic in her hind-quarters, but mainly she seems to be just fine, and she can certainly race through the woods keeping up with her older sister.”

“Allie is a bit of a scamp. She has chewed up 2 flip-flops (sadly from different pairs!!!), a book on marathon training, a box that was to go to the recycling centre, several toys and I think she holds the world record for demolishing a tennis ball in about 3.5 seconds! If her sister gets any attention Allie has to head-butt her out of the way”

“At this point they know several commands and their only remaining bad habit (but it is very bad!) is not coming back to me when they are in pursuit of exciting squirrel or cat scents on our walks. Next week we are going to work with a trainer on that. They are also quite strong initially when they are on their leads, but within a few minutes they settle into heeling nicely for me, so I’m sure that will get better with a bit more practice too!”

ANGEL AND ALLIE WHEN NANNY CAME TO STAY

The girls are crazy about their Grandad (he has that effect on dogs!) and vice-versa of course ….. they have been following him around like a tail. They have been giving him their paw, and then the “other one” which is very cute!

A HAPPY DAY OUT

The girls had a very happy day out, walking on the Plains with Jan and her dogs. Here they are being good and patiently waiting for treats. Left to right we have Allie, Bertie, Angel, Zach and Sam (foster boy).

Of course, Sam became Aileen’s 3rd “failure” when she decided to adopt him.

POPULAR SPONSOR DOGS

In 2009, Allie and Angel became Sponsor Dogs for IRR, taking over from their good friends, Zach and Burt, representing all those dogs who are surrendered as a “pair” to with their sibling and who are found to be too close to one another to be separated.

Aileen would like to thank the wonderful people who sponsored her girls:-