Zara
Acrylic on card,

Zara is our 3 year old German Shepherd.  She was already 6 months old when we got her from the local animal shelter and she came with a lot of baggage.  We love her to bits but like many large, intelligent dogs who are mistreated and abandoned she is a handful and we’ve had our fair share of adventures…..and Xmas eve was no exception.

When I took her a treat at 9 pm, she was behaving strangely, nothing I could put my finger on, just odd, lethargic somehow.  She’d been playing all day with our latest rescue, an abandoned Viszla puppy and we assumed she was just knackered.  When Gina went out at 11, she happened to stroke her under the chest and her hand came away covered in blood!

Our first thought was that she’d been shot!

When we turned her over there was a 4″ triangle of skin hangıng loosely down from her chest with a finger sized hole at the apex. Our normal vet refused to call out so with the help of our neighbour, Bob, we got her to the marvellous Suçkun at Ankavet before midnight. After the operation we got back home around 2.30 on Xmas morning.  Zara’s making a good recovery and currently crashing round the garden with a cone around her head,

After some detective work we discovered she had somehow managed to impale herself on the garden railings!

I painted this one in an attempt to capture something of her tremendous spirit.