Lots of sadness here but after five days, we’ve decided to bring Eros back to the shelter. The description that the shelter gave, does not fit Eros. In fact, he’s the opposite of everything they’ve said he would be. They said he didn’t care about cats, well, he keeps on attacking our cat. The cat doesn’t come indoors any more because he’s too afraid. Two days ago I decided to pick the cat up and bring him inside. I was greeted by an angry dog that showed his teeth, growled, barked at me, and was just acting plain out of control. Even when I tried to correct him and even got cross at him, he just wouldn’t stop. They also told us he would be good with other dogs… Yesterday my sister arrived home and a half hour later, Eros attacked DJ (my sisters dog) for no apparent reason. DJ is left wounded and stressed out and has to be locked up in the bedroom so Eros can’t get to him. Then this morning, my sister walked in the living room and Eros just lashed out at her. Again, for no reason at all. He has shown that he can not be trusted and that’s why we’ve decided it would be better to bring him back to the shelter. He needs to be with people that don’t have any children and don’t have any other pets. The people from shelter also said he’s nice with kids but I for one wouldn’t dare to leave him with my little nieces and nephews or any other small children.

My mom and I are sad about this whole ordeal but we’ve got no other choice. We don’t feel safe with Eros around us.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting a new dog, as our last dog, Pasha, passed away three years ago. Some time ago, I got a green light from my parents to start searching for a dog. There were different breeds I was interested in, among them were the Groenendael, Border Collie, Golden Retriever, Flat-Coated Retriever, and Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever. (AKA my favourite breeds) In the end, I decided to stick with the Golden Retriever and so the search began. My first intentions were to get a puppy from a good Golden Retriever breeder, however, I also kept looking at pets.be, a site were all Belgian shelters list the dogs that are up for adoption, and that’s where I found my dog. The dog in question was named Eros and was described as a Golden Retriever male of five, very sweet, good with kids, good with dogs, good with cats, could be alone for a few hours, loves to play, and he’s had some obedience training. The only downside, the shelter were he stayed was located in the South, near the France border. (we live up North, near the Dutch border) Luckily, after some begging, my dad agreed to drive so my mom called the shelter to put an option on Eros and made an appointment for Wednesday.

And that day was today. Eros is now here and he really is a sweet boy. He loves to play, balls are his favourite, and he’s also really affectionate and loves to cuddle. I took him for a walk in the nearby forest and I can say that he loves to hunt rabbits. He had to stick his nose into every rabbit hole and one rabbit actually shot past us and I could barely hold him back from chasing that poor little thing. I also did some jogging with him and I think he would be great in Canicross. I’m definitely thinking of taking him to a dog school to further his obedience training as he only knows to “sit”, “give paw”, “heel”, and “come”, and he sometimes mixes them up. (sometimes when you tell him to sit, he will give you his paw)

For a little pic spam of Eros, click on the following link: Read more »

Some of you might already read this on Twitter, but, yeah, Puk died last Tuesday. Puk was my guinea pig. I feel really bad about the way he died and I’ve never been this upset before with the passing of an animal. That morning I walked by my guinea pigs and they were all wheeping really loudly so I just obliged to their obvious (or so I thought) demand of more food. Five minutes later, as I walked past them again⁽¹⁾, Pippin (Puk’s cage mate) started to franticly wheep again. I remember saying something like “Jesus christ, I just gave you food, didn’t I?” . That’s when I noticed Puk wasn’t around. One quick look and I saw him lying motionless in their wooden piggy home. I touched him and he was already cold. That explained why Pippin was so upset! I quickly took Pippin out of the cage and cuddled with him for a bit in my room. I set up an extra cage for him in my room, gave him some vegetables, and then sat down myself for some thinking.

I guess about half an hour after I found Puk, for some reason I thought I needed to go see him again and find a box to bury him in. I took Puk out of the cage, said a few words, and all of the sudden Puk’s mouth opened and made a throwing up motion. He was still alive! I completely panicked and ran into my mom’s bedroom and together we looked if he had something stuck in his throat. As we couldn’t see anything except for something that looked a lot like diarrhea, I shouted that we needed a vet. My mom called the animal clinic that is supposed to be available 24/24. My mom got the fucking answer machine! She left them a message, stating it was an emergency, then called another vet. This vet couldn’t help us until noon! My mom called another vet, nobody even answered the phone. This went on and on and all this time Puk was suffering. Forty (!) minutes later we finally found a vet that could help us, unfortunately at this time, Puk had already choked to death.

Our neighbour was nice enough to drive us to the vet to make sure that he was really “gone”, which he was. An hour after Puk died, we got a phone call back from the animal clinic, asking if we still needed help. Well he’s dead, isn’t he? You have the nerve to call back so late?! What part of an emergency don’t you understand?! He kept saying how regrettable the situation was. Do the world a favour, put your lip over your head and swallow. Asshole.

So there you have it folks. Lots of tears were spend as I had to helplessly watch an animal that I’ve had for 5 years and love dearly, suffer to death because vets that claim to be available 24/24 refused to help me out in any way. If you ever need a vet, don’t count on a Belgian one as most of them obviously don’t give a shit.

In other news, my frog has been getting jiggy with a “stray” frog. The slut. Half of our garden pond is filled with little tadpoles. If all of those little buggers survive⁽²⁾, we’ll have a serious frog plague.

— 1. The cages of my guinea pigs (as well as the cage of my rabbits) are right next to the staircase, so I walk past them frequently.
— 2. As in, the fish don’t eat them all.