Targaryen - The ALMOST Bold

So starts the wondrous story of how Dread Pirate Targy set sail to plunder the hearts of this loving family with all ship’s cannons blazing.

Targaryen is a purebred Great Dane who was 18 months when Shelly and her family agreed to foster him in February 2017. Targy, as he is affectionately known is now 3.

SHELLY'S STORY

Targaryen the ALMOST Bold had lost an eye to glaucoma and his owner hadn't planned on caring for a blind dog. Adoptadane offered to rehome him, otherwise he would have been put down.   

Marion, Adoptadane's tireless coordinator, worked hard to get this boy into Adoptadane Rescue. I went to collect him from his previous owner’s mother, with whom he was living at the time and felt her son was only 31, too young to have to deal with a dog this size going blind. The fact that Targaryen already had glaucoma when he bought him off the breeder seemed to be irrelevant. It was apparently a SURPRISE for him to be going blind!!! (His remaining eye will probably go blind).

Targaryen had been an outside only dog, with no coat for winter and a flat 1” thick piece of foam for a bed. He has two dips in his muscles that run either side of his spine due to a couple of kicks from steel-toed boots.

This great one-eyed beasty plundered our hearts and home never to leave. He scuttled his ship in our backyard to become the landlubber eventually known as Targaryen the ALMOST Bold.

He had a glass eye which was causing him lots of problems, but that didn’t deter the girls at all. No indeed, they flocked to his side flirting madly with this roguish Boy.

He went on beach trips, tearing up the sand chasing seagulls, eating all manner of dead and decaying tasty things and rolling in horse poo. He had numerous cafe dates, putting on his best dopey eared look. Targy often caused pedestrian congestion, due to the line up of adoring humans wanting to pat him. He walked through the local parks having a ball, now getting used to living the life of a loved and cared for dog. A dog that deserved the best we could give him.

This loveable pirate then had to undergo 3 major surgeries in 10 weeks.

A tragic series of mistakes led to him becoming no longer rehomeable, because by this time he had gone through so much. With us as his loving guiding star in a sea of pain and uncertainty, he didn’t deserve to have to try and cope with anything more.

The first operation was to tighten his eyelid to keep the glass eye in that his previous owner was insistent he have, because he didn’t like the look of an eye sewn closed. Forget what would have been best for Targy. Naturally, his head grew so the eye was going to fall out, hence the operation to tighten his eyelid. Following the surgery, his lashes irritated his eye because they had made it too tight and the lid turned inwards, so Adoptadane allowed the vet to take out the glass eye and sew his eye shut. Some tear ducts were left in place accidentally, resulting in his eye filling with tears that had nowhere to go and requiring further surgery.

The vet decided to keep Targy at the hospital for the whole recovery time. This was the biggest mistake yet which led to him suffering severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and requiring 3 different medications to help him recover. The medications consisted of 2 for anxiety and 1 for the pain in his joints from being in a crate that was barely big enough for him, for 4 weeks. Thus he is now known as Targy the ALMOST Bold!!!

This lovable landlubber is widely known on Brisdanes as he had many maidens eagerly following his journey, gazing longingly at his handsome visage and sighing because he would never be theirs.

The fiendish devil he is, plotted and schemed, finally securing a permanent couch in our home.

Targaryen followed our black Great Dane girl JuJu everywhere, until she finally succumbed to his charms and played with him. At 6, JuJu is very much a daddy’s girl and very aloof, she is a lady of discerning tastes after all. Targy FORCED our Ridgeback Floyd to accept him, laying beside him whether he wanted company or not, which was mostly NOT! Floyd is 8 and just not bothered with the young ones nowadays.

Our daughters came home on holidays and promptly fell in love with Targaryen the ALMOST Bold, rocketing him to stardom by taking photos of him and whipping them out at their workplaces whenever anyone stood still long enough to be ensnared.  

It has been a long road to recovery for this most adorable man and we are still all travelling it together. I say together because not only is Targy recovering slowly with lots of understanding and love. Targy's exuberance has resulted in his human father mending a dislocated finger from Targy pulling on the lead accidentally when jumping into the car. Dad now knows not to wrap the lead around his finger, or anything else. His two human sisters both recovered from bruising and paw indents when they thought is was okay to lay on the carpet and stretch with Targaryen the ALMOST Bold in the room...sigh...as any dog human knows this just says in neon signs….PLEASE DOGS STEP ALL OVER ME AND REPEAT AND REPEAT until stupid human gets up off the carpet.

And lastly, human mum is recovering from a broken foot due to the great one eyed beasty launching himself off her foot, upon which he was standing at the time, when he heard the back door opening and thought it was “run in the back acre time”!!!

So now we have a third member of our family who is a snuggle bunny, cuddle mad, back sleeping, thong stealing, squeaky toy junky, Double BB semi trailer sized previously unable, until a couple of months ago, to perform a U turn in the hallway. He is heart-stealing, still growing, bodacious in his new-found confidence, did I say heart-stealing? Family have to buy a new car to fit all dogs, make mum make a bigger dog bed that allows for humans to snuggle and hand hold with him,  blonde God. In his mind he is not a DOG….he is a..drumroll….wait for it….GOD!!! who goes by the name...TARGARYEN THE ALMOST BOLD!

Thank  DOG GOD for this amazing new family member.