I've had a few people ask me which breeder I got Ginny from, to which I reply she's actually a rescue dog and leave it at that, how I got her isn't really an interesting topic and because I'm lazy I usually avoid going into detail about it, it also generally makes me a bit sad thinking about it. I figured now I've made this blog it would be a good idea to go into a bit more detail about the four legged munchkin.
I was volunteering at Templewood kennels in 2008, a privately run boading kennels for dogs whose owners were going on holiday and they needed their dogs looking after while they were away, it was also a place to house working dogs (drug and bomb sniffer dogs) while they were taking a break from working. It wasn't a rescue center, just a private boarding kennel. I'd been there for about 3 months when my boss who owned the kennels phoned the main office saying she'd just driven past a dog chained up to a gate next to a busy motorway and she was going to bring the dog in and then call the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to come and pick the dog up from us. My boss drove up in the company van and brought out this incredibly skinny thing that is now known as Ginny. She carried Ginny into the main office and sat her down on several blankets by the desk while she made phone calls to people who were properly trained to come and pick Ginny up. Me and several people that worked at the kennels instantly loved Ginny. Ginny was terrified of us all (and I don't blame her, I'd be terrified of a group of adults going "AWWW POOR PUPPY" at me) so she hid behind several office chairs and refused to move. There were a few things visibly wrong with Ginny, she had green gunge all around her eyes, marks on her back and marks on her legs. I hate to think how she got those marks that were on her body at the time. Me and my friend stayed with Ginny in the office, eventually Ginny came out from hiding, we tried giving her food but she refused it. After a while Ginny calmed down and took turns being cuddled and generally squealed over by me and my friend.
I'd wanted a dog for a while but never really put much thought into getting one, I told my friend I wanted to take this dog home, she just said "well, why don't you?". That was a good enough reason for me. I told my boss I was thinking of just taking "that skinny dog" home, she wasn't happy about it. She'd been on the phone to her brother who lived in Ireland, and he wanted her to call the RSPCA and tell them not to bother about picking the dog up because he was going to drive down and take it back to Ireland to train her as a hunting dog. I didn't like that (now I laugh thinking about it, Ginny could never be a hunting dog, she wouldn't even hurt a fly) but I really didn't have much choice, if it wasn't for my friend at the kennels telling me to just "take her" Ginny would be in Ireland now. It was 10 minutes before we were due to go, my friend put a load of blankets in her car, we loaded Ginny in and just drove off as if nothing happened and
we were finished for the day. I never went back to the kennels to volunteer after that day, I was kinda scared that I'd be told to bring Ginny back so she could go to Ireland. According to my friend that still works there, her boss hasn't ever asked about Ginny. We figure she doesn't see much point in asking, she knew we took Ginny and I wasn't ever going to bring her back.
Me and my friend took Ginny to the vets first for a quick check-up, after waiting for half an hour the vet gave Ginny a very, very quick check-up and apart from being under-weight, having bad eczema, gunky eyes and those marks on her body he said she was fine. He covered Ginny in some disgusting cream to sooth the eczema and gave us eye drops. I was told she couldn't get her skin wet for 24 hours after having the cream put on, but of course living in the UK it was raining so for the first day when Ginny went outside I had to follow her with an umbrella. She didn't like the first night at all, we set up a bed for her and my boyfriend used one of his jumpers as a blanket for her (we were seriously not prepared, her food bowl for the first night was an old ice cream tub, not that she cared because she refused to eat) of course she hated the bed we made for her, she wandered around the house and eventually when we woke up we found her asleep on the sofa. Once her eczema treatment was over she had her first bath. She hated me for it. She was a very fussy dog, she still is.
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| After her first bath, she hiding her disgust for me rather well in this picture. |
About a week later Ginny started settling down so we booked another appointment for her at a different vets to check how her eczema and eyes were doing. The vet noticed Ginny had a temperature, after an x-ray he discovered she had problems with her throat due to being chained up to the gate when she was abandoned. Her throat problems were why she was so thin and showing no signs in wanting to eat, in fact the only thing she would eat was Pedigree puppy food that had been blended up, and even then she would only eat a mouthful at a time. I figured she wasn't eating because she was scared, stupid me. Luckily the problem was caught early, and after minor surgery and a lot of rest Ginny was allowed to come back home.
To this day she still prefers blended food, she eats dog biscuits but they have to be small or cut up. The only big things she'll eat are bacon treats. She wears a collar with a name tag and a tag saying she's been micro-chipped, but she won't let you put the leash on her collar. She prefers to walk freely next to us on a walk or occasionally wear a harness.
I get asked sometimes how we came up with the name Ginny, and actually a few weeks after her surgery we still hadn't come up with a name for Ginny, we just called her "puppy", it's so lucky she never got attached to that name. I was round my sisters house and I'd brought "puppy" along, Harry Potter was on TV, my niece told me to call "puppy" Ginny, we liked the name and stuck with it. I have my 8 year old niece to thank for Ginny's name (and J.K Rowling).
After 4 months, Ginny had gained a good amount of weight, her eczema was under control, her eyes were fine. She'd been groomed and generally looked rather spiffing. We took her to the vets again to finish off her first round of shots, we were starting to wonder if Ginny was a pure Jack Russell or not, our vet was pretty certain she was but we've always felt there's something else to Ginny. When we also asked how old she was his answer (at the time in 2008) was "about 15 months old", of course that was 4 years ago so now Ginny is 5(ish).
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| Chilling out upside down next to me after her first ever grooming session in the summer of '08 This may look familiar because I've uploaded this picture to Instagram already. There isn't a picture I have of Ginny that hasn't already been uploaded to IG. |
As for the person that abandoned Ginny, we'll never know who they were. I only hope whoever it was doesn't own any pets currently and never owns any pets in the future. Ginny has no problems with other dogs or other people, she's rather social, luckily that idiot that abandoned her didn't have any influence on how Ginny sees new people in her life. As far as I see it, whoever left her chained to the fence crying and scared by the side of the road made the biggest mistake of their life, because she would have been one of the best things in their life. Now it turns out she's one of the best things in mine.
