Allergies and Dog Beds

I have just been contacted by a very, very sorry lady, who asked for our help. She and her family bought a Weimaraner five months ago, but it has now transpired that her little son’s asthma has been brought on by the dog. How sad, when you have your wonderful four-legged friend on one of her waterproof, strong dog beds soundly asleep in your house. Having to give up the pet is truly heart breaking. I did put her message on FB to see if anyone was interested.

Thankfully I have never been in such a terrible situation, but it must be awful. So what can one do if faced with this? Obviously, the health of the family comes first and there is no choice, the dog has to go (along with all the nice dog beds that you may have bought for it). But do you try and give it back to the breeder, passing on the problem? Or do you try to advertise it yourself? And if so, would you prefer to send your loved pet to a new home a LONG way away or would you try and re-home it to someone nearby, where you would be allowed to come and visit? You could even come and take it out for a walk from time to time. The thing is that as time goes by, that pain starts to go away and you will feel much better about it. Time does certainly heal when it comes to something like this. I don’t think that time really heals if you have had your dog stolen or run over, but in the case of having to make the decision for the sake of the family, the horrid feeling will ease fairly easily.

Often the breeder will take the dog back, but not always.

Also, if you have a young dog bred for working, you could consider giving it to a working home. I think there is some misunderstanding from some people who think that working dogs don’t get dog beds, but that is very far from the truth. If you have been good with the dog and given it some basic training (as in not letting it chase rabbits etc), there may be people who would like a more mature dog instead of a very young puppy. I did get my GWP when he was five months instead of two months and although I really missed getting the chance to enjoy the warm little puppy, my fear that he and I wouldn’t get to bond properly was completely unfounded. Working a dog means you build one of the strongest bonds, not the least because you go through both beautiful, but also utterly miserable and exhausting days together before you can both get home to your warm dog beds and normal beds.