Apollo's Legacy

Most of you will be aware but we lost our dog Apollo in December 2024. A lot of dog trainers will get into behaviour work because they had/have a problem dog. Whilst Apollo wasn the original dog that got me into dog psychology, he was the reason I became so good at what I do. So here's our story.

We picked Apollo up from a local rescue in July 2021 aged 2.5 years old. We were actually going to meet another dog but I saw Apollo being walked back to his kennel and thought to myself, that’s my kind of dog! He had unfortunately bitten the child in the home and he wasn’t a fan of other dogs. That was fine, we don’t know any children and we don’t have any dogs, so we could avoid it! As soon as he was off assessment, he came home with us and we thought we had our dream dog…oh how were we wrong!

On day 2, Apollo and Jack were playing with a toy in the front room when Jack called me in. Apollo had dropped the toy in front of Jack and when Jack reached down to pick it up, Apollo lunged at his face, no contact but there was some intent there! No biggy, we just managed his access to toys and let him be with them. 

By week 2, he started going out for walks and we saw the full extent of his dog reactivity. Apollo would lunge and scream at other dogs from a distance of around 2 football pitches. A couple of times he redirected onto us if we got in his way. Quite clearly a fear response, we looked for quiet walks, started to build some basic engagement outside the house and began the muzzle training process. He seemed cautious around people and a little uncomfortable when being touched but we weren’t too concerned, he was still meeting people well. He also took to lunging at loud or large vehicles and very nearly took me out in front of multiple lorries, he was quite strong if he caught you off guard!

Then we saw yet more resource guarding. This time, it was over chews, kongs and licky mats. If one of us left the room and then wanted to reenter when he had something, he would stiffen, stare and growl. If he had something, he had to have it in another room or we had to stay perfectly still until he finished it! At one point, he guarded my front room over a chew for 8 hours and I couldn’t diffuse the situation. We had a monster. We were both weary of him, tip toeing round him and constantly monitoring his body language. By this point, we’re both starting to think we’ve made a mistake. 

In October 2021, Apollo was sat on our bed and I noticed something on his leg, as I leant forward to touch it he launched at my face, no teeth but left some marks and a slightly bruised eye! At that point, we opted to go to the vet because I felt his behaviours were far too extreme to just be behavioural. He just seemed to find the whole world really hard and everything I had tried so far just wasn’t working. I went with a 25 point list of reasons why I thought he was in pain, even down to the mechanics of his pooing position! He was very nervous in the consult room, we hadn't finished muzzle training yet. As the vet bent down to touch his back, he lunged and pinned her against the wall! They gave us some pain relief and a referral to a specialist. 

Apollo was found to have 2 diseased cruciates that had partially ruptured and hip dysplasia. This would probably explain a lot of his defensiveness and touch sensitivity. Over the next 6 months, Apollo had 2 surgeries and some very stressful vet visits (one time we couldn’t get him sedated and spent 6 hours driving up and down the M1 trying to rock him to sleep! As a result of this we had a vet visit plan and GA plan put in place which was game changing and I would highly recommend if you have a tricky dog at the vets!) During this time, Apollo had to have steroids for an ear infection which meant he had to come off pain relief. On Christmas Day morning we went to take a picture in front of the Christmas tree and the flash of the camera went off repeatedly. Unfortunately we didn’t see Apollo’s warning signs because we were behind him and he turned and bit my face quite badly. Our world absolutely came crashing down. What the hell should we do now? We had pressure from family and friends to euthanise and we did seriously consider this. If I couldn’t keep him safe and happy with my knowledge and experience then what life does he have?

This was a turning point for us and a massive learning curve. We opted to continue and get him in for his next surgery and see how his behaviour was once we had repaired his cruciates. We couldn't use the garden because he would fence fight with next doors dogs so we had to support his back end to toilet on the grass at the back of the house which was fine, until someone walked past with their dog and Apollo bust his stitches and started bleeding! Cue 2 of us, a muzzle, padded coats and a lot of bandages trying to stem the bleed and not get bitten! 6 weeks post op, he was attacked by another dog. Fortunately, Apollo had his muzzle on but the whole thing was terrifying and unfortunately this wasn’t the last incident we were to have with this dog. He then ended up with a necrotic plate in one of his legs and had to have yet another surgery to have it removed and a further 3 months of very very expensive antibiotics (this dog really wanted to bankrupt us!)

He was incredibly difficult to read, gave very little warning signs and would escalate to snapping and biting very quickly. We had to teach him to growl so we could listen to his discomfort and act accordingly. We still felt there was significant pain in Apollo despite the surgeries. His back was spasming in his sleep, he would chew his legs and he was still very touch sensitive and aloof. We trialled a concoction of pain relief as well as some anxiolytic medication and we were fortunate to buy the house of our dreams in a quiet rural village which really was the turning point for Apollo (even if he and next door’s dog, Ronnie never really saw eye to eye!)

By summer 22, Apollo was seeing far less triggers, his pain was better managed, his resource guarding and noise sensitivity had disappeared and he was started to actively look for a cuddle! We were making brilliant progress with his dog reactivity and he was able to walk past people and ignore them. 

Over the next 2 years we kept working through everything. Parallel walking with friends dogs, introducing him to visitors to the home, taking him on his first holiday and building on consent based handling. We even got him to hydrotherapy where the staff at Millhaven Canine Rehab were phenomenal with accommodating his needs and working with him. He loved it there. He always had fluctuations with the pain in his legs and we were always assessing quality of life but he always seemed to pull through. This year I was extremely proud to get him into a village hall with 3 other dogs and a group of new people without reaction. He really excelled at scent detection and became known as the world’s slowest (fake) explo detection dog!

For the last year, he became very normal for us. He required a small level of management but on the whole was a normal, cuddly, happy boy. Over the last 6 weeks he became slightly poorly and unfortunately on investigation he was found to have a multitude of internal issues where the kindest thing to do was let him go.

Everyone says how lucky he was to have found us and he wouldn’t have had the life he had without us, but really, we were the lucky ones. As a result of living with Apollo first hand, I have been able to help thousands of dogs, both in rescue, private practice and through his instagram account @apollosjourney__ where we documented everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. He probably tested Jack and I’s relationship to the max but in the end brought us closer together and his transformation was just incredible to watch. It took a good 3 years to get the dog we wanted and we just had to be patient despite all of the setbacks, frustrations and fears. He was my biggest challenge, my proudest accomplishment and my greatest teacher and doing life without him at the moment, is really hard. 

I guess if Apollo’s story says anything, it might just demonstrate that there is light at the end of the tunnel even when it feels like you can’t find a way out. There are so many components to behaviour modification training, it's not always just about the actual training part and finding a decent behaviourist is vital to helping you tackle the problem holistically. Don’t give up, you’ve got this!