Hi Folks, I have some really sad news today about a GAL rescue dog called Scruffy, for those of you who don't know his background here's his story as published on the GAL Blog at the end of October last year....

This is GAL's latest arrival, his new foster mum has called him SCRUFFY, you can see why! Last Sunday (24th October) GAL received an urgent phone call from a vets. They had picked up a Lurcher with an unusual and terribly sad story. The dog had been spotted roaming round the local area for over 6 weeks, it was known by the local residents that the dogs owners, on discovering their dog had a broken leg, had simply abandoned him. Many attempts were made to catch the dog and finally on Sunday the local vet with the aid of some friends managed to catch him. The dog was taken into the vets surgery and immediately examined. The dogs leg was indeed VERY badly broken and needed to be amputated immediately. This is where GAL comes in, the vet needed paid for the very expensive operation then needed to find a home where the dog could recuperate. As far as GAL was concerned the money was not a problem, finding a foster home at such short notice was, however, after a number of frantic calls a great foster home was found for him. The dogs leg was amputated successfully that day and the dog went to his new foster home the next day where he was quickly renamed SCRUFFY. As you can see by his picture SCRUFFY is a strange looking character, after being a stray for so long he is very underweight and his coat is in a pretty bad condition. SCRUFFY is also a VERY nervous boy and is only now, after 4 days in his new home, beginning to allow his foster parent to gently touch and stroke him. SCRUFFY was taken to the vets today for a check up, he's recovering well from his operation however some bad news was awaiting him. On examining x-rays of his leg prior to amputation a large mass within the leg was identified as the cause of the leg break. Following tests on this mass it has been diagnosed as an osteosarcoma. In laymans terms this is a very aggressive cancer which had grown from the inside of the leg and forced the bone to splinter and break. This type of cancer is virulent and fatal with the usual life span after diagnosis being 6 months, as SCRUFFY had been roaming free for at least 6 weeks the cancer will have spread to the rest of his body. After being contacted by the vet who caught SCRUFFY the police and the SSPCA are now launching criminal charges against SCRUFFY'S old owners. I'll leave you with the last line of an email I received earlier from SCRUFFY'S foster mum - ''I shall give him all the love he wants and more and hope that his last weeks or months are a lot happier than he has obviously been in a long time if ever''

Sadly Scruffy had to be PTS this morning, his health had deteriorated dramatically over the last few days and this morning Scruffy couldn't walk. We suspect he finally succumbed to the Cancer, we're all devastated by this but know his last few months were very happy ones. Our thoughts are with Mione who did such a great job looking after Scruffy in his final months.