MEET CRYSTAL 18 September 1998 - present
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This is Crystal. My second White German Shepherd, I picked her up from a place in Ludlow in November. The "kennels" where she was were disgusting, there were three pups left (only one girl) they were in a "container" that was adapted to take dogs. On the floor there was straw, a water bowl and that's it. When I went into the shed you would have thought that they would come over for a fuss and a play. |
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No such thing, they were terrified of humans, I can only guess that they had no contact other than when someone went into feed them or clean them out, they were not used to people handling them at all. I picked up Crystal and all she did was wriggle and try to get free. I really should not have had her as she was not socialised at all, but could I leave her there with them? Course not! |
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In the first picture on the wicker chair Crystal's ears are down, it's the only photo we have like that, because the day after I bought her I took her to work, and the photographer was in and I had her picture taken. |
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The following morning when we got up her ears were bolt upright and they stayed that way. At Christmas, about three months old she had a jumabone like the others, made for adult dogs, but as you see she ate the lot. |
| She loved her first Christmas, especially playing with the balloons, and the photo in front of the Christmas tree is just gorgeous in my humble opinion! That's when she got the nickname Crystal Cringle. However the one to the right shows that she does enjoy getting a little dirty even from an early age. She grew up fast and earned herself the nickname "Thug", only because she didn't take care when when was doing anything. |
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Not long after we moved house I was cooking some beans in a saucepan on the cooker, I left the kitchen to answer the door, went back to the kitchen to catch Crystal helping herself to the beans in the saucepan still on the cooker! In the picture to the right you can see that she is trying to look intelligent. Crystal did start to go dog training. She went to beginner classes and passed beginners in August 1999.
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Crystal arrived after Merlin, but being a German Shepherd she was bigger than him. When they went for walks they would chase each other, snapping and snarling. |
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On one such occasion, as you can see Crystal suffered a torn ear, It was late at night, I was on my own. I took her to the vet in the morning, the bandage and protective collar I put on myself. |
| We got to the vets, I explained what had happened and they asked what vet she had seen already because she had the collar and bandage on! I said none that I had dressed it. |
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One general anesthetic and a few stitches later, I went and picked her up from the vets. How difficult is it to stop a dog scratching their ear! Especially when its healing. |
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Crystal, like the other dogs, loves swimming in the sea, in the river anywhere there is water! In the picture on the right we see Gizmo (see Gizmo's story) with a closely following Crystal. |
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Although Crystal is fascinated by Gizmo, follows her and makes sure she's safe. Crystal gets very excited, and this gets Gizmo excited, Gizmo then bites Crystal's back legs. What does Crystal do? |
| Nothing, for a while, but after about six Gizmo bite she gets a little fed up so turns round and picks he up in her mouth! She then holds her there until one of us removes her, not a mark on Gizmo. |
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On the beach, Crystal has a fascination with sticks, not small ones, but great big branches! When we're Walking it can be a bit of a problem, when she tries to get between us! |
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With this particular branch she bashed both mine and my husbands legs! Not to mention gave the other dogs a headache! We tried to take it off her but she wouldn't have it. |
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Bobby would try to take it off her, problem being that she would not let go, they would have a tug of war. After a walk she likes nothing better than having a long sleep. |
| In August 2006 Crystal had a bad stomach in Scotland, it had been more than a couple of days, so we took her to the vet. They examined her and gave her some antibiotics, but then asked how long she had had the lump. |
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Lump? What lump? Apparently she had a lump on the inside of her hind leg. They gave her a few days to get over the tummy bug, and we took her back to the vet for them to X-ray her, and if possible remove the lump. |
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We dropped her off in the morning, walked the others on the beach, went back to the caravan. Didn't know what was happening, but the vet phoned and said she was fine and we can go and pick her up. We got there and the vet said that when they X-rayed her they couldn't tell what the lump was, so they decided to knock her out completely. They cut her leg open to get a better look. |
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Unfortunately they said they could not remove it as it was so fibrous, had fibres stretching out in all directions. They took a biopsy to send away for testing, but did not give a good prognosis. They were convinced that it would come back malignant (Cancer). We had to keep everything crossed and hope for the best. She had her op on Thursday, we were going home on the Sunday, results back Wednesday. We went home and waited. |
| I couldn't wait any longer, on the Wednesday teatime I phoned the vet in Scotland from home, he explained that the lump had come back benign, they couldn't believe it, neither could we, she was going to be fine. |
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They explained that it must have been an injury to that muscle that had over healed and produced a hard lump. They asked us if we had noticed her lame at all, we hadn't, they couldn't explain it. |
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| Future developments of Crystals exploits will be placed on this page as and when they happen. |
