Name: Oxford

Date of Arrival: 16th of November 2o15
Date of Adoption: 27th of February 2016

About Oxford: What is there that we can say about Oxford? We can only describe him as a "one in a million" dog that only graces your life once. He is the type of Crested that easily reminds you of a magestic unicorn in a dogs body! A real looker, that is for sure.

Oxford arrived in care with his daughter, Illy, mid November 2015. He was a well manner roly-poly blob of a dog, so he quickly went on a diet. He went through our routine health check, vaccinate, worm, flea treatment, heart worm test/preventative and especially for him - a major dental where he lost about 8 teeth, leaving him with about 6! Once he healed from that, he had a gorgeous peeping tongue look.

After a short amount of time in care, we noticed that he was walking very stiff and with his head a bit low. No matter, we took him to the vet for a diagnosis and pain relief. That did help, but a few days later there was no real improvement. We booked him in for a set of xrays and found a slight calcification in his neck, which looked to be the cause of his pain. We tried a different set of medication, but again after a few days Oxford was howling in pain, being syringe fed and almost unable to walk. We quickly booked in with a specialist. It was December 23rd. 

Stephen and I found ourselves in East Malvern at the Pet Emergency & Specialist Centre with Oxford bundled in a blue blanket. I remember speaking with Dr. Chris Preston about his condition. A herniated disc, he suspected. Only one way to find out - putting Ox under a GA and having him go through a myelogram. We had to make the very expensive choice on the spot. Yes... go ahead. We couldn't not know. 
Only a few short minutes later, we got a phone call. "Come back to the clinic now. You have a tough decision to make..."

We had three options:
1. Wake him up and hospice nurse him until the end.
2. Not wake him up and let him go while he was under.
3. Surgery at that moment.

Myself, I was in tears, while Steve was stuck being the pragmatic head of the rescue. Surgery would mean the rescue would be put back several thousand dollars and would ultimately see us with a cleared out bank account (both the rescue and our personal account) – but we knew Ox was a beautiful, happy dog that would make someone very happy – he was only 7 and still had so much more life to live – so we went with the surgery. We said our goodbyes to Oxford, who was still in lala land, as we had to leave him there overnight, which was tough in itself. However it seemed as if we were only down the street (in reality over 2 hours had passed) and we got the phone call - all was done and Ox was already conscious and sitting upright! What a trooper! So it was a great success - even the specialist was surprised at the amount of fluid he took out of Oxford! And better yet, we were told we were able to bring him home the next day on Christmas Eve – having him back was like a Christmas miracle.

This begun a very long recovery of 8 weeks of recovery - including 6 weeks of crate rest. Our sweet little man took every thing so well, he just rolled with the punches he was dealt. Finally, in late February 2016, I was able to drive him out to a meet and greet - a couple that already had a female crested and they had thought a while about getting thier little Joy a friend and had been following Oxford's story and had fallen in love with him during his months of recovery. After a few settling in grumbles (Oxford being an attention hog and lovely Joy learning to share) it seems like a match made in heaven - ebony and ivory, with Joy being dark and Oxford being white.

Oxford was a Crestie was that very hard to rehome, after all we'd been through together. But I am so happy he found his place in life.

All my love, Oxford. You deserve it!