Happy 2nd Birthday Duke & Demon!

Duke and his brother, Demon turned two years old today!  Their lives have been filled with plenty of ups and downs, and new homes.  Although they are only two, they have already had three families.  It’s sad really, but it turned into happy lives for both of them!

When they were puppies a truck driver in the UK decided he wanted both of them.  When they were old enough, they went to live with him, but then him and his wife separated and he couldn’t take Duke and Demon on the road with him.  Their time there was very short lived.

So a family that owns a lot of dogs and some horses who knew the trucker agreed to take care of them for a couple of months while he was away.  This couple of months turned into quite a long time until the wife of the family asked the husband to find out when the trucker was going to get Duke and Demon.  They were quite happy to keep both brothers, but wanted to know what to do.

The trucker said that they could keep both Duke and Demon, and they continued living with that family and a bunch of other dogs.  They were left to run around outside and were allowed into a conservatory at night.  They weren’t really trained it seems until they showed up at the dog club that Julian is an instructor at.  When they showed up there, they were completely untrained.  They continued going to dog club and Julian told their owners that if they were ever thinking about re-homing them he wanted to be the first to know!  (Maybe he had some foresight as to what was about to happen…)

Right around that time, I was in Canada training Keisha (another Siberian Husky) to become my next guide/service dog.  My first guide dog, a yellow lab. named Sophie was easing into retirement after working for nine years.  That’s when Keisha started having seizures (or more noticeable seizures) and I found out I would need a new dog to train.

Shortly after, they took Julian up on his offer!  Demon and Duke jumped a fence one evening and wandered off down the road where a neighbors dog was hanging out on their front porch.  Duke and Demon, being the males that they are decided to  have some fun and the neighbors dog became pregnant!  The neighbor was extremely mad and the family that was taking care of Demon and Duke got Demon neutered.

So Julian accepted and would go to pick them up each week to bring them to dog club.  He worked with both Duke and Demon and say some progress in these dogs that had been labeled “untrainable”.  In the week before I left for the UK he finally brought them home.  They were a complete nightmare at first, peeing in his plant and generally trying to destroy the whole place!  They never really got use to living inside.  They howled and kept Julian and his son up the first night and many nights after.

After hearing about how each of them were doing at dog club I was already leaning towards working with Duke, but I tried to keep an open mind for when I met them.  Their personalities started to show and I was more set on Duke than ever.  When I got to the airport Julian had Duke in the back of his car.  He let him out and I gave him a stale Air Canada roll.  He thought this was great!  I tried to teach him how to give me his paw and on the third time he hesitated, and raised his paw.  By the fourth time he had it under control!  Since then it’s his trick when he  really wants something!

I stayed in  the UK for six months working with Duke and now, although it’s only been just over seven months he’s already working!  He’s guiding and we are going to start concentrating on  his service dog tasks soon.  He has  a very good aptitude for  the work he does and he just needed a job and someone to love him unconditionally.  They have both come so far in such a short time.  I’m extremely proud of both of them!

Of course the previous owners still claim they are going to get Duke and Demon back once they are trained because they have changed their minds, but that’s not going to happen!  If they cared so much they would have worked with them instead of getting rid of them in the first place!  Julian and I have put a lot of work into training these dogs (and a lot of money in vet bills from getting Duke neutered and vaccinated). We take care of them and show them the love and patience they never had before.  We promised both Duke and Demon that we were their forever family and no one or nothing will change that!

So, happy birthday boys!  I hope you both had a great day and have many more happy birthday’s to come!  (Duke just finished licking out his peanut butter stuffed birthday Kong!)