Bingo Snoad

GOODBYE TO OUR VERY SPECIAL BOY (13.1.2019)

Kevin told us, “It is with great sadness that, after nine happy years, we had to say goodbye to Bingo today.

Only one month ago, during a routine visit to the vet, they noticed that his lymph nodes were very enlarged and that he had developed a worryingly irregular heartbeat. With the help of medication and excellent veterinary care, we managed to have a lovely Christmas with him but, today, he let us know that he needed to rest.

Food obsessed to the end, Bingo passed over Rainbow Bridge eating small morsels of Schmakos.

He was an integral part of our family, greatly loved by Clare, me and our grown-up children Laura and Philip. He accompanied us on every holiday we have had in the past 9 years and he always made them extra special.

We have shared a few of the hundreds of photos we have of Bingo for you to see, the black and white one was taken only a week ago.

We are really missing Bingo. The house seems so empty and quiet without him and with no welcoming nose poking through the gap as you unlock the door. We do know he is in the best place now though.

Thank you all for everything you do to rescue these lovely dogs and for giving us the opportunity to adopt Bingo 9 years ago. He has been so much fun”.

We at IRR would like to thank Kevin and Clare very much for giving Bingo such a wonderful,
exciting life and, most importantly, for loving him to bits.

HISTORY

Bingo is a male Golden Retriever and was 2.5 years old in 2010. He was the biggest in the litter of 7. He had been neutered and was up to date with all vaccinations.

REPORT FROM HIS ORIGINAL OWNERS

Sandie sent this report from his previous owners. “Bingo is a very intelligent dog who is highly trainable. He currently can on command “sit” go “down” where he lies down and “relax” where his body will relax. He attended the Dog Training Ireland briefly where the training focuses on positive reward for following a command, so food was the big motivator at the start and still is.

Unfortunately Bingo required a lot more attention than we could give him due to having a new baby in the house. His attention seeking behaviours included things like taking the washing of the line and taking something from the house ie cushions etc just to get attention. We took him to see Orla Doherty a Veterinary Behaviour Specialist who devised a programme for us. This did have an immediate effect however required more time than we could give Bingo in order for it to be a total success.

Bingo stayed outside for most of the day and in the evening was brought in to sleep in the utility room. This worked out well and he enjoyed coming in, however I feel he would have preferred to stay in the house all the time. He is not trained for staying indoors. However I feel this would not be a problem as long as he had the attention from those caring for him. He is still quite young and energetic. And would love a lot of attention. As we have a young family this was a little difficult. He would be suited to a house were the children were older. He is good with children, and would let my 6 year old pet and rub his tummy, however he is a little large and can run fast so he may appear a little intimidating for small children, he would be suited to older ones even teenagers who may help with walking and playing. He loves to play throwing and catching, however is reluctant to release the item out of his mouth and usually wants you to pull, which is not a good idea.

He does not bark, if he does it is very very rare. He also will wait until let out of the house before going to the toilet, and he has never barked to be let out, and has never soiled in the house since he was a little puppy.

Bingo can pull on the lead especially at the beginning of a walk. We were advised to use the Gentle Leader and were doing so and it worked well for Bingo. He is really friendly with other dogs when out walking he can pull towards another dog, just to say hello. Bingo is not trained off the lead and can run away when the lead is taken off, if there is water near by he will more than likely go for a swim.

Overall he is a very friendly dog, good with children, however is larger than most retrievers and stronger so may be better with older children. He is highly trainable but requires a lot of attention and training and I believe if he receives all of this will be a very good addition to any household.”

FOSTERERS’ REPORT

As Forrest Gump’s Momma said: Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get. And fostering for IRR can sometimes be like that. I knew that I would be fostering a male GR called Bingo who had had limited training but when he arrived, fresh from his journey from Ireland, the first impression was his sheer size and energy. Bingo is one of the biggest GRs I have ever seen both in terms of height and weight. He is incredibly strong and when he first arrived totally uncontrollable. He was like a bull in a china shop and just so excited and thrilled to meet everyone. Five days later I’m pleased to report that he has calmed down enormously most of the time although he does get over excited when visitors come to the house. Owing to him pulling and the icy weather I have not walked him yet but he seems quite happy to play in the garden with my Golden Retreiver and also the odd game of fetch with me. You can imagine that owing to his size he does not like to do too much and enjoys nothing more than a snooze in his crate.

This guy has the most adorable personality and is easy going with no sign of an aggressive side. He is fine with my cats in as much as he shows no desire to chase them and just ignores them. However, he is clumsy so consequently he has spooked them when he has gone crashing up to say hello. For this reason I do not feel that a home with small children would be suitable for him as he will knock them flying.

In addition I would suggest that he is not a “beginners” dog. He needs a dog savvy home where his size and clumsiness will not be a problem. A home where there is a suitable place for him to sleep where he cannot damage anything and new owners who are used to large dogs. He has had basic training and will sit beautifully to take treats from you which he does really gently. On the down side, he counter surfs and removes things from the kitchen that at first would appear out of his reach. He has taken things out of the sink, stolen half a dozen eggs and broken them all over the floor. He has taken and eaten a bunch of bananas and tried to mug me for my breakfast – he lost out on that one!

He is very trainable but you need to know what you are doing. For anyone willing to take on this challenge, you will be rewarded by one hell of a dog. He is good looking, charming and everyone will fall for him (literally if the training fails!).

FURTHER UPDATE

Julie said. “Bingo and I have just been for our first walk. We walked around the village for about 40-45 minutes and all in all he was as good as gold.

Bingo and Roddy have had a play fest this morning and I notice whilst walking Roddy that he was not his usual wired self. Obivously tired. Using the logic that if he was tired then I guessed that Bingo would be tired too so it would be a good time to try walking him.

I used his Gentle Leader which he was not really impressed with and tried to get off a couple of times. Initially we did a short walk for about 15 minutes but he walked straight past the house so I guessed that he wanted to continue walking. As he was walking so well, we carried on. A couple of minutes into the extended walk, he’d had enough so sat down. One Gravy Bone later and a bit of coaxing we were on our way. We had a chat with a couple of people and he just sat down like a good boy on both occasions. The man I spoke to made a fuss of him and Bingo jumped up at him when he stopped. The guy used to have a GSD so he told Bingo firmly to sit which he did and he got another fuss. He went on strike one more time but got going again with a Gravy Bone. We had to do one “about turn” when he saw another dog and thought he would like to say hello but then he carried on as good as gold. He has obviously had some training in this area and it shows. He walks to heel almost as well as Layla (sniffer dog trained) and much better than Roddy.

When we walked over the same route that we had done on the short walk, he realised he was going home and walked faster. When we got back to the house and he heard Roddy bark he was overjoyed and pulled me up the path towards the front door with his tail wagging furiously.”

Although Bingo looks lovely and, at heart, is a gorgeous boy, he was not for the fainthearted. Julie had to work very hard with him and on several occasions almost cracked under the pressure. His counter surfing, although extremely funny to the rest of us, was a nightmare for Julie especially on the day she had to clean up the dozen eggs that Bingo threw around the kitchen by waving the carton about furiously………nothing was safe from him mainly because he is VERY big and could reach further than most other dogs.

Bingo always means well and doesn’t have a bad bone in his body but he is a total buffoon and even Julie had a heart stopping moment when the whole head of one of her cats disappeared inside Bingo’s mouth (his greeting to strangers was to mouth their arms, albeit everso gently). Thankfully, no harm was done and the cat, though somewhat shocked, seem to realise that no malice was meant to her by the big lump.

Nobody was safe from Bingo’s enthusiastic greetings which usually meant being flattened on a sofa unable to breath because of the enormous furry golden thing sitting on your lap and washing you from head to toe. We realised that Bingo would need very experienced owners to stop him getting completely out of hand but they would also needed to have an extremely good sense of humour. Who would be up to the challenge?

BINGO’S FOREVER HOME

Kevin, Claire and their son came and met Bingo and they loved him. They stayed for about 90 minutes and saw him playing with Roddy, got a Bingo greeting of lots of licks and mouthing and jumping up, took him for a walk so they could see what a good boy he is and they saw him fast asleep in in crate (well, it’s tiring being on your best behaviour).

FIRST REPORT FROM BINGO’S NEW HOME

Clare said, “Just thought we’d let you know Bingo is settling in very well indeed. We spent most of the morning yesterday out in the garden, we were tidying things up and Bingo had a good time exploring and looking for the cats. They are still being quite elusive which is intriguing him. One of them saw him through the stair gate on the kitchen door, just hissed and ran out. They have taken refuge for now in Phil’s bedroom, only venturing out when needs must. They don’t seem stressed.

We took Bingo to the vets this morning. He is an excellent traveller once strapped in! The vet checked him over and said he’s fine, he’s lost a couple of teeth, and did say one of his gums was slightly inflamed but nothing to worry about. He wasn’t duly concerned about his weight either (37.1 Kg), he said if he lost a few pounds that would be fine, but just a maintenance diet would be OK. He had his annual jab as well. We are going to get him groomed professionally soon so that we can get all his knots removed, we should be able to manage ourselves after that.

We haven’t taken him down to the beach yet as it gets very busy in the winter at weekends, but weather permitting will take him tomorrow afternoon. We did take him up to the Trundle (hill on the downs over looking Chichester) yesterday and had a nice walk, he has also been out for a few walks locally. He has been fine with all the other dogs and people he has met. Kevin has met some old faces from when he used to walk Oscar, so has had to stop and tell the story.”

UPDATE 21/03/2010

Clare said. “Bingo is setting in very well and does not seem to mind living indoors.

We are now walking him without his gentle leader and although he does pull occasionally he is ok most of the time.

When it’s safe we sometimes let him off the lead as you can see from the windmill photo. This works ok as long as there are no distractions like water or another dog!

He still likes to ‘counter surf’ in the kitchen but luckily we have not had any major disasters like you had! But as with most retrievers you have to be very alert if you are holding anything tasty!

Now the weather is improving, we plan to start taking him on long walks, we will send more photos then.

I’m not sure if we’ve done this already but we would like to thank all at IRR for allowing us to become Bingo’s new home.”