Bigboy - our thirty first contribution (by  Stanley Castle)

Lex had been found in February 2001on the motorway near Sunderland. He was emaciated and in a very poor condition. He was taken by the person who had found him to the rescue centre in the boot of a car. He was looked after at the GRWE kennels by Yvonne and her husband. When we collected him in October he looked in very good condition.

He behaved well in the car on the way home for a journey of about one hundred miles but wouldn’t lie down.

We thought that Lex sounded too much like a Ford Garage so we called him Bigboy. (The children said, “you can’t call him that,” but we did. – he answers to BB as well.) The name Bigboy was chosen because, in spite of our thinking we wanted a small dog, he was just about as big as greyhounds get.

He had a crate to sleep in at first. He wolfed down his food in case anyone else might get to it first. It was about a month before he would look me in the eye even for a brief moment. We live in the country and he was very happy out walking where it was quiet, but when I took him into the village he would be shaking by the time we got there, and after a few minutes walking with people about and cars going past he would be in a panic and pirouette on the end of his lead. I tried to get him used to walking in the village but he never did improve so after about six weeks, I decided that it was cruel to put him through it any longer and stopped taking him regularly.

He did not like men, especially big ones in overcoats, but now after a year he is much better but still suspicious of male strangers out of doors. If he is in the garden he runs in the house if he hears the children next-door playing and bouncing balls. He does not like children en masse and he doesn’t like people playing football in the park.

At home one could not wish for a better pet, he is well behaved and doesn’t carry off visitors handbags very much now. He doesn’t know how to play and doesn’t seem likely to learn. He has the occasional burst when he gets energetic with his toy dog but very rarely plays with it, although if one picks it up he comes and reclaims it. He loves visitors to the house and to be fussed by them. He accepts males more readily indoors than out.

If we pick up something that he thinks we could use to hit him, such as a fly swot, he runs away.

He loves going out for a walk but once he gets out his enthusiasm sometimes wanes and he hates the rain. He is always ready to go out in the car and if he sees a car hatch open he wants to get in. He is very reluctant to lie down in the car; he is a bit of a back seat driver. On a long journey he will only lie down on smooth straight sections of road.

He has the distressing habit of chewing himself, especially his pads, when he gets stressed. He first did it when we had a noisy thunderstorm.

We think that his fear of cars whooshing past him when he is walking is probably due to his experience of being abandoned on the motorway. He has probably been ill treated by a man or men and been beaten with sticks. (He also has scars that could be due to cigarette burns). He has probably been tormented by children.

In spite of his fears and hang-ups he is a lovely good-tempered dog and he gives us a great deal of pleasure. He is our exercise machine par excellence in that he makes sure that we go for at least two walks every day. We try to give him as good a life as we can to make up for his horrible past.

We have learnt from Sam Graham that he is an Irish-born dog and his racing name was Alison’s Legacy though we do not know whether he ever raced.