I missed him so much, still do, and hated coming in to an empty house. So, we got a kitten, a beautiful little tabby kitten we called Freya. I am a dog person! I love Freya, but still felt the enormous hole left by Specks, so the hunt for another dog began!
I was getting desperate, all the dogs I liked, no-one else did, and vice-versa. I love the Spanish hunting dogs, Podencos, but was on my own there. Something made me look at shelters abroad and there we finally managed to agree on a dog. The decision was made, home check was passed and the plans were in place.
On 21st July, 2015, Milo arrived in the UK from Greece, and we duly picked him up and brought him home. Little did we know what we had let ourselves in for. If we had known we definately would have not made the decision to take him on.
Milo was left at the shelter when he was around 5 weeks old and when we picked him up he was about 9 months old. We had thought about him never having lived in a house and therefore wouldnt be used to the various noises of every day life, but that was as far as it went. What we hadn't considered was the fact that for the past 9 months he had lived in a small enclosure, with nothing to do and weeing and pooing whenever he needed. Yup, you guessed it, old habits die hard! This little 12kg scrap of skin and bone really didnt want to have to go outside to do his business, why should he? To add insult to injury, when he was stressed he would cock his leg on anything and everything.
He also tried to eat Freya at every opportunity, and the only solution we had was to shut her upstairs and keep the devil dog downstairs. Happily she got bigger and learned to stand up for herself and they are fine together now.
Milo took about 4 months to learn toilet training and around the same time stopped his endless pacing. This dog didnt know how to play or how to relax. He went through an endless amount of cardboard boxes to keep him occupied, cos they seemed to keep him happy. The floor was a continual explosion of cardboard. Another thing that he did was take everything, and I mean everything, nothing was safe! Paper, pens, cds, dvds, ornaments, shoes, clothing, cushions, wires. You name it, the bloody dog had it! Its like having a toddler all over again, except toddlers don't usually leap at the kitchen worktops and try and slurp off everything their anteater tongue can reach. He still does it a year on and nothing we have done has rid him of this annoying habit. He even has the washing off the line!
He is useless on a lead, but will give you his paw, wait for his treats and is very loving. The thing that makes it all worth the agro, the tears, the frustration is the fact that this dog is exuberant, he loves life. As soon as we reach the common and I let him off his lead he is off, running and running, playing with other dogs, leaping around in the water.
Before I started writing this, I wanted to go into more detail of our journey, but once I started it was just all too much. So many different problems with him. There were countless occasions when we wanted to give up on him, and it did take a long time to fall in love with him. I used to liken him to an autistic child who didn't understand English.
Bit by bit he has wormed himself into our hearts and now, despite the fact we still have issues, he is here to stay. We have spent a fortune on dog whisperers to try and help us but ultimately realised it was down to us. We have muddled through and all of us have come a long way. We have a beautiful lurcher collie cross who has doubled his weight but still looks skinny, who loves us and protects us. He will be 2 in October and has calmed down and is 100 times better behaved than he was. If you think of taking on a rescue dog from abroad think hard. Having chatted to other people who rescued dogs from greece (via The Strays of Greece) I do think that Milo has been particularly difficult. Chat to as many people as you can about it bevore making the decision. On the other hand, there are also hundreds and hundreds of success stories.
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