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Safety, warmth and care — no matter how long it takes
Every dog deserves a loving home – but some can take a long time to find that home. At the Dogs’ Homes of Tasmania, we don’t give up on our “long-timers”.
Chevy, the three-year-old Bull Arab, had spent 16 months at the Home where he worked hard on his big dog manners – a necessity at 45kg. Finally, some luck came his way earlier this year in the form of Callam.
Callam’s 16-year-old Beagle, Lucy, passed away in December last year. “It was really hard – it’d been her and I for that long,” Callam remembers. “And she was fantastic.”
Callam had a holiday staying with friends earlier this year and particularly bonded with one of their two dogs. “So I started thinking, ‘all right, that’s it’ – I was going to wait a bit longer but I thought, ‘I’ll start looking, and if something comes up’ … and it did.”
That something, or someone, was Chevy. Callam remembers that the time Chevy had spent at the Home swayed his decision over a younger, cuter dog who would be easily adopted by someone else. “I probably needed a bit of a challenge,” he says. “And we probably needed each other – I needed him as much as he needed me.” And so, in March, he packed Chevy up in his car and took him to his new home.
Callam says that while Lucy was a fairly independent dog, Chevy likes to keep close. “He’s got to know where you are, and if you’re sitting down he’s got to be touching you. You go to the toilet, and there’s the dog! He’s just a big sook. Of a night time we’ll sit on the couch and he’ll go to sleep on my lap or try to sit on my lap.”
Chevy has made a few changes around the place, especially in the backyard. “It looked like Jurassic Park out there last week – there were bones everywhere.” He suspects Chevy may have found the late Lucy’s secret stash.
Chevy’s an avid TV watcher who enjoys action and colour: “He’s very focused and he’s very curious.”
Chevy is popular with Callam’s parents and gets on well with their little dog. “They’re quite funny together,” he says.
Chevy can be a bit of an excitable lad, and 45kg of excitement can be a little much at times, so the pair have been working one-on-one with a dog trainer. But Callam doesn’t measure Chevy’s success in terms of time — these two have got all the time in the world.
“He’s got me now,” Callam says. “He’s not going back.”
