) with people telling me how beautiful she is.Socks is gobsmackingly beautiful, and has a lovely sweet temperament.
The terrier that is my avatar on OzPol died about four years ago. I was sole carer for Mum and at her age (she died in 2021 aged almost 101—couldn’t bring a puppy into the house, if it tripped Mum up that would have been the end for her. About 2-3 months after her death I started thinking about adopting a puppy. Feb 4, 2022, I visited the RSPCA shelter where I had made an appointment to view 2 English Staffordshire puppies.
When I got there for my scheduled appointment both of these puppies were gone. There was, it seemed, a staghound puppy there, a long-legged 12Kg puppy. Not pure staghound, her head is not houndlike at all and her snout is far too deep. Maybe American Staffordshire in her genome? I had seen mention of her in passing looking through the shelter website thinking “I don’t want a dog big and heavy enough to take down a stag!”
Socks is now 26.7Kg: but for some nasty, hard to shift tapeworms in her guts she would be more like 31-32Kg, bigger than the normal Staghound cross bitch usually gets. Socks defies categorisation
The worms don’t slow her much but she is not as healthy as she should be with them. I have tried vet–suppled tablets, garlic, ground cloves and coconut oil. Sometimes she has a garlic breath that knocks you over! Really—like ten old greeks blokes living on Greek junk food!What with settling Mum’s estate, selling the house for over three quarters of a million dollars, dealing with pettifogging questions about probate from the Court knowing the countdown to when the buyer could cancel the sale was getting ever nearer, packing up stuff to have moved to Tassie, other stuff (clothes etc) to move to the flat attached to sister and bil’s house, moving to that flat 40Km away etc etc Sock’s obedience training was sparse and irregular but when she wanted to she worked beautifully smart bitch that one.
What does she look like? Sorry I can’t show a photo—the Mod-subsitute we have here is a thief and a troll. Socks has looong legs and a deep chest—the staghound breed was formed by crossing a greyhound with a scottish deer hound, both sight coursing dogs. It was bred as a poaching dog and was used as a hunting dog: In Australia they were called kangaroo dogs and were used to hunt kangaroos: in America they are also known as coyote dogs and are still used to hunt that critter. Here some are used to hunt feral pigs. What poachers and hunters liked was that the legs of a staghound are sturdier than the legs of a greyhound.
Her color is a light fawn—a honey color someone said—with enough brindling to be interesting and no more. On one side you could almost imagine that she looks a bit like a Tasmanian Tiger! (not really but you get the idea.)
Someone on my fine forum, commenting on a photo of Socks (she has white front feet hence “Socks”) chasing an artificial (3 plastic bags) hare with mouth open (for air?) and so showing healthy pink sclera (gums and tongue) and lovely white teeth said he would rather deal with my little terrier than with Socks. How wrong he was: Socks is a real sweety, loves everyone we meet (and mostly they love her too) and, an issue from her life before I adopted her resolved, she just is 27 kilo bundle of love
Oh—at the lure coursing meets I hear comments from those who have not seen her run before like “Shit she can run!” Indeed she can!
My wonderful dog, so glad I adopted her tho not a British staffy pup!
Translation: Dumbarse Drunk has no idea where he put his false teeth and fake hair piece.