Sam

Sam is a retriever X, 4 years old and is about 75% blind at the moment, his night vision has completely gone now. He has acute arthritis in his front legs and is taking Metacam daily. A 100ml bottle costing £32 lasts him from 8-10 weeks. He is up to date with all of his jabs/worming/flea treatments and is otherwise in good health. He is on a low fat diet as he is slightly overweight and this needs to be controlled to help ease his arthritis.

His present owner, who is devastated at having to rehome him, says:
“I would prefer to keep him with me until a permanent home is found due to his sight problems as it may take a little longer than usual to adapt to a new environment and I wouldn’t want him to have to do that more times than absolutely necessary.”

“He spends most of the day by himself in the house so is used to being left alone for long periods. He is very excitable and does jump up a lot when we first come back in the house so he probably wouldn’t be good being placed with small children. He has never really been around other animals. We once had a rabbit and he just wanted to play all the time and wouldn’t leave the poor thing alone so possibly it isn’t the best idea to place him in a home with small animals running around! He is very inquisitive and just has to be where you are whenever you are doing something, in case he misses out!”

“When we go for walks he loves to run off the lead and tends to stop and wait for you when you shout him. He gets tired quickly so I tend to take him on short walks more often during the day rather than long ones twice a day. He doesn’t seem to like to go out in the dark or if its raining/really windy we think its because the noises scare him with him not being able to see what is making them!! When he meets other dogs he goes straight over to play and it can take him a while to realise that you are ready to move on and he has to leave them alone!!”

“He has always had a free reign of the house and is used to sleeping in the bedroom with me. He had his own bed at first but tends to sleep on the floor or on the bottom of the bed so I just put an old blanket and duvet down for him so he can sleep there if he wants to.”

“I have spoken to the vet about re-homing him and she does not anticipate any problems with him settling into a new home.”