Frankys Story

Franky came to us when he was one month old. At that time he was being raised by his mother Iris and was promised to another family. We kept Franky to our place along with his sister until it was time for them to be adopted. 

Franky’s sister quickly found a family to live with while Franky’s adoption was getting postponed. It was not long before we found a small lump protruding below his left ear and decided to visit the vet to see what it was. We were all surprised when the vet discovered a third fully functional ear!

Franky’s mother Iris is diagnosed with epilepsy and the vet said that there was a good possibility that he would inheret it too. Moreover a few weeks before being born his father was put down due to the fact that he bit a person in the pet store.

The above alongside with the fact that he was born without a tail made us realize that he was a special boy that would require good care and therefore we decided to adopt him ourselves.

The first year was pretty much what you would expect when raising a very energetic doggie! He chewed on everything, barked and cried when we were away and peed in all the wrong places! Of course all of that trouble did not matter one bit because he was incredibly cute, playful and showed us unending love every day. Unfortunately not all our neighbors saw his kindness and someone tried to poison him. Thanks to Angeliki’s swift response we managed to save him and got away with just a stressful night.

The following years went fairly smoothly, we moved to a house closeby to a dog park, where Franky would meet a lot of other dog friends and socialize. Franky was a very good boy with his friends, they would play nicely, chase each other, play fetch and all the usual dog stuff. He was even quite patient when other dogs tried to dominate him. 

Unfortunately at the age of three he had his first serious epileptic seizure. We run a full medical check and the vet concluded that it was inhereted from his mother. Around the same time he started being more protective when we met other dogs while he was on the leash. This behaviour would worsen over the years making it impossible for us to walk with him in the city.

A few years later we moved to Sweden and o we decided that it was time for Franky to go to school, thus our adventures begun! 

We met our first teacher during an exhibition for dogs at Svenska mässan. She suggested to work with positive reinforcement and nose work to fix aggressive behaviour towards other dogs. The method suggested that we should throw treats on his head when we met other dogs to get his attention. This had the opposite of the intended effect. We later realized that we where actually reinforcing his behaviour and made him look like a potato.

The second teacher’s approach revolved around tiring the dog so he would be in a good mood and not have the energy to protect us from other dogs during our walks. In the case where he would ”lose control” during a dog meeting we had to force him to the ground and dominate him, while shouting really hard. During that time we introduced the chocking leash to deal with his intense pulling. Unfortunately none of the above worked. It was impossible to tire him out, since he actually never gives up, not during a three hour walk at least. 

The third teacher suggested that we need to draw Franky’s attention away from the approaching dog by pinching him on a soft spot in the base of the back leg. Depending on his intensity we were supposed to adjust the intensity of the pinch. This method only increased his anxiety during dog meetings and almost taught him to bite us! During one of these training sessions Franky was not responding to this method and the trainer resulted into punching him so he would obey his command.

The fourth teacher suggested that we give Franky hemp oil especially made for dogs and correcting his behaviour by spaying him with water on the nose.

It was quite sad to realise that all our attempts in correcting Franky’s behaviour during dog meetings only led into making our relationship with him worse. We were not giving him any love, we were only trying to force him into doing something that he did not understand. We ourselves became very tense during our walks and we passed this energy to him. The worst thing was that his behaviour towards other dogs worsened, he got more stressed and he  was still pulling on the leash.

That is when we decided that Nikos would train him using whatever we had learned from all the teachers and that we would not force him to correct his behaviour any more, but rather try to live with it.

After one and a half years, Franky’s stress was a lot better and he stopped pulling on the leash. His behaviour towards other dogs was still quite difficult but we learned how to handle him. 

Franky is a very sweet and patient dog, he is very playful and loving. All in all he is a very good boy. When we are all inside our home there is never any trouble and his behaviour is very different from when we are out on a walk. We think that his medical issues has caused him a lot of stress over the years, stress that we, due to the fact that he is our first dog, were not able to relieve. 

All these years we have always considered him an important part of our lives and an essential part of our family. We always try to shape our lives taking his needs under consideration. 

We believe that for the first time after all these years we have taken a step to the right direction by introducing Franky to your dog family.

We owe you a huge thanks for taking such a good care of him!