The Three Legged Rescue Dog Who Found His Home!

Rescuing a pet can change both of your lives. This is certainly what happened when I rescued Oscar! As part of the #PawsForThought campaign I wrote his story and told the world all about @Oscar_threepaws, the Fuzmo mascot!

Here at Fuzmo.com we decided to dedicate the month of January to raising awareness of these incredible shelters and animal homes, and inspire as many people as possible to give an abandoned animal their forever home. The #PawsForThought Campaign will feature the inspirational stories of rescue animals all over the world and what better way to kick off the proceedings than telling you about our very own rescue pooch, @oscar_threepaws!? This is how little Oscar came to be the top secret writer for Fuzfeed! (Written by his mummy, the not so secret writer for Fuzfeed!)

More info: fuzfeed.com

“My partner and I had always talked about getting a dog. I’d never really had my own dog when I was growing up (apart from a few distant memories of a lovely doberman who was a little too over protective of me as a baby and was prone to biting postmen!), but my boyfriend was lucky enough to have a little Jack Russell called Sam when he was younger. He would always tell me stories of how much of a character he was and I always felt a little bit like something was missing… And so the pestering began.

My poor boyfriend watched on as I started following all the “Dogs For Sale In Your Area” Facebook groups and every day I’d shove my phone in his face and say “I WANT THAT ONE!” It started as a bit of a joke. We couldn’t really afford to spend hundreds on the breeds we’d always said we loved and the people who were selling puppies seemed to be asking a lot of money for them.

It was around this time that a friend suggested that I should adopt a dog. I looked into it and stumbled upon the Llys Nini RSPCA. That’s where we saw @oscar_threepaws for the very first time. A beautiful little mutt who had been mistreated by his previous owner resulting in him losing his leg. He’d been picked up and thrown down on concrete. It shattered his back leg so badly that there was nothing else to do but amputate it. Our hearts melted. The thought of that poor boy being in the kennel recovering from such a heavy operation was too much to handle, so we drove down the next day to see him. We knew from that moment that we just had to rescue him. We’d fallen in love with a dog called Oscar.

The RSPCA are very strict with how you go about adopting a pet from them. This is something everyone should expect and appreciate if you are considering rescuing an animal. They want the right homes for the pets they care for. Every kennel will have different regulations and systems in place and the RSPCA start by making sure that if you rent your home you have the permission from your landlord. Overnight we got our landlord to email confirmation that she was more than happy for us to bring him home. We were very lucky, but to avoid disappointment make sure you check with your landlord before you go to any shelter!

Next comes the home visit, where a volunteer will come to make sure that your house is safe, suitable and sanitary! Due to Oscar having recently lost a leg they were reluctant to let us have him as whilst our flat was more than big enough for him, there were a fair few stairs involved in getting to it. Oscar hadn’t experienced stairs on his newly tri-paws, but we were adamant that he would be able to cope and if he couldn’t climb the stairs then we would carry him up there until we found a more suitable residence for him. All the really helpful tripawd sites (such as tripawds.com who I can’t thank enough for all the help they provided me when I was rescuing Oscar!!!) all said to let a dog be a dog, and had plenty of stories of other three legged pets overcoming stairs easily over a short period of getting used to them.

I think that our knowledge was fundamentally the reason that the RSPCA gave us a chance and let us take Oscar home! This is another bit of essential advice I would give to anyone who wants to rescue! DO YOUR RESEARCH! Know what to say and do to overcome any road blocks you might face during your adoption process. Also, remember that they aren’t trying to make it difficult! They just want what is best for the animal, so you need to know what that is too!

Luckily for us, the RSPCA decided that we were what was best for Oscar and he was certainly the best thing that ever happened for us! He is a wonderfully happy boy and despite his missing leg is so completely full of life! As he is an older pooch we were incredibly lucky to find him fully house trained, something to consider if you don’t have a lot of time to put in to training a puppy. Oscar changed our lives for the better. He’s the reason why I love my job at Fuzfeed so much and he’s the reason to get up in the morning (especially for that morning walk! It’s a killer!! Haha!).

Oh, and the day we drove him home he ran straight up the stairs without any problems and stood at the top looking down at me still at the bottom looking remarkably pleased at himself. He’s been impressing us ever since! <3