My name is: Rusty
I came from: Cyprus
Now I live in: Edinburgh
My favourite things are: Food, cuddles, food, squirrels, FOOD

Rusty’s story

Our dog of 14 years, Mr. C, died last November. His passing was felt hard by us, our friends and the clients at the Pilates studio we run. You can read his story here.

By Christmas, Ruth was scouring the dog rehoming sites and fell in love with Rusty. We couldn’t believe no one had snapped him up so we nipped down from Edinburgh to meet his foster parents in London. Rusty was perfect, he was active and interested in the world. He was very nervous of people but we were confident we could deal with his fears just as we had with our previous rescue dog.

The temperature difference, in Scotland, from London let alone Cyprus, was quite a shock for poor Rusty and his first purchase was a warm Equifleese jacket which he loves. Stef and Dan, his foster carers in London, did a fantastic job of getting Rusty to feel safe in his crate in an evening which provided a stable routine for us to continue.

We don’t know much about Rusty’s past life. Unfortunately it comes back to us in the form of his fears. His fear of men was so strong Rusty leapt out of Andy’s hands the first time he tried to lift him. But Rusty has worked hard and conquered his fear - with the power of treats.

We had amazing summer weather in Scotland and Rusty could sit in the front garden watching the world go by in the sun. Like most other people who got a dog before lockdown, Rusty didn’t get to meet many new people, although actually that was the advice given to us in the care package info from Underdog. The idea was to keep his world small and increase it slowly. Lockdown basically did that for us (a rare upside!)

We introduced him to our world slowly and encouraged anyone who approached our front yard to give him a treat and approach him in a lower posture. This worked really well and Rusty now thinks all postmen just hand out treats on demand! Lockdown has proved hard to get him over his fear of vets though, but we’re working on that.

Rusty is yet to fully meet all our clients at the Pilates studio but, like many of our clients pets, he makes his presence felt in the online classes we currently run by running in and distracting everyone.

We live on the doorstep of the giant inactive volcano, Arthurs Seat, which Rusty can enjoy every day and as his confidence grows he ventures further and plays with the many dogs on the hill. Lucky for us he still loves his treats and always comes back. He is such an affectionate dog who loves a cuddle (not just because it’s so cold up here) and he has the weird habit you rarely see in a dog, of showing his teeth when he's happy.

Thanks to Underdog for putting us together and the support and advice we got from the start. Going from an old dog to a young one was certainly a big change but his joy and energy has really helped us through this year of lockdowns and helped us build a stable future together. We are so happy we rescued Rusty!

- Andy & Ruth