Zeus's story

This is Zeus's story. It is definitely not training advice and should not be taken as such. It's what we did, some right, some wrong. And it's what he did in our 10 years together. Which was to make us laugh, make us cry and generally just to be there regardless. And we were there for him.

Part 1: Zeus at the Dog's Trust 

When I decided to go part time and treat myself to a dog the Dog's Trust website was my first port of call and Zeus's picture immediately called to me. He was described as a mastiff cross breed: Size, Giant (actually that just means over 40kg at the Dogs Trust).

Ann and I visited and asked if we could see him. I was asked to fill in a questionnaire and immediately told I wasn't suitable as he couldn't be left alone. I pointed out I was shortly going part time and would have someone to sit with him when I was at work and we were soon in an office talking to the behaviourist.  This was a long conversation,  he went to some lengths to explain that Zeus could be a difficult reactive dog, had been found on the street at a few months old, already had a failed rehoming and the last attempt to introduce him to a prospective owner had gone badly.  And specifically that he tended to jump up and grab clothes and arms. He wasn't on general display because he would just throw himself at the glass so he was in the bad dogs block around the back. After about an hour I just asked if we could see the dog. 

Zeus was brought in to the training barn. He was calm, head down a bit. Once he got near us he was a bit more excited and tending to jump up and we just turned away as instructed. He seemed friendly and accepted treats and we went out across the field for a walk and my first opportunity to take his lead and see how hard he could pull! 

I loved him straightaway but we decided to think it over and come back the next week.  

The second time we went to see him we noticed the staff all on their radios to each other... "Zeus is coming out!", this was a recurrent theme. So we met up again and walked again and I decided he was for me. For the next few weeks I visited about once a week,  sometimes with Ann, sometimes with Jess her daughter and we tried to walk him without the staff. Initially he didn't want to leave the buildings and just got down on his belly and tried to crawl back home. Many treats were consumed bribing him into the field and around.  It became apparent that he recognised us from the third visit and the visits became easier. I was asked to pay for a new fitted harness for him and we practised getting him to jump in the boot of the car for treats as we knew he had been difficult with vehicles before.  

A couple of months later after the educational tutorial and the home inspection we collected him and took him home to Halifax on December 9th 2013. He was about a year old so we made this his official birthday.

Part 2: Home, the early days.

Arriving home we took Zeus for a walk. Through quiet roads to Savile Park ("The Moor") and a circuit around the perimeter and back home, about a mile or so. How easy was that! we had got him a large dog basket for sleeping, and a cushion for the living room with a vision of him lying contentedly by the fire. Zeus had other ideas, he was going to be a sofa dog. However given his size (the Dogs Trust had told us he was nearly 40kg) we didn't want him on the sofas but he growled and snarled when I tried to get him off so the only solution was for us all to decamp to the dining room, shut the living room door and for the next month the TV was off, and we sat at the dining table, playing cards and scrabble and Zeus shuttled between his basket in the dining room and his cushion by the radiator in the hallway. We also got a stairgate for the bottom of the stairs to keep him on the ground floor; I didn't want him in the bedrooms or on the bed(s), especially if i was in it. After the triumph of our first walk, life became much more difficult. Initially Zeus just refused to leave the driveway to walk at all. The only way to make any progress was with very frequent treats of cut up hotdog sausage and for days I could only get him 20-50m from home. At the time it was hugely frustrating and not in keeping with my idea of us roaming the countryside together, but in retrospect I realise I should just have been more patient. We gradually bribed and cajoled our way along a nearby street and then around the block and for me a breakthrough moment was getting him to walk along a woodland path nearby to make a circuit - this was probably a couple of weeks after he came home. We had other problems too. At mealtimes Zeus would not leave us alone to eat even sitting at the dining table. He would try and force his way between us and our plates and I ate quite a few meals standing up. On one occasion he even climbed up on an empty chair and ended up on the table. Why we didn't immediately do the obvious and put him in the kitchen while we ate I just don't know. Perhaps we were influenced by the Dogs Trust telling us not to say "no" to him as that's the word dogs hear most often. Then there was the grabbing. I used to wear an old sailing jacket for going outside. We had already seen Zeus grabbing at the jackets worn by the Dogs Trust staff and turning it into a tug of war. He transferred this immediately to me, grabbing at my arms or the front of the jacket, and tearing the pockets off on more than one occasion. I remember standing in the kitchen sewing the pocket back on and having him try to take it away from me even before it was mended. I was nearly crying in frustration. Having overcome his reluctance to walk from the house I had to deal with the pulling. Not unusual of course in a young dog but harder because of his terrific power. We had stuck with the harness as advised, I tried shorter and longer leads and eventually an extending lead but it was exhausting. And then he started ragging the lead. I think this made me more frustrated and angry than anything, it could go on for minutes at a time out on walks. The only advice I could get from the Dogs Trust was to try not to turn it into a tug game (how?). I remember walking around the moor with him and saying to myself "If I can just get him to walk without pulling and ragging the lead I'll be happy". And when things don't go well even now, I think back to that point and how far we have come since then. Then there was the "can't be left" issue. Ann had gone back to work and I decided to do a quick supermarket run. I think I was out for about 10 minutes all told and amazed to find Zeus apparently unmoved by my absence. But I was still reluctant to leave him for long and there were some chew marks on some chair seats and a bookcase from time to time. Sooner or later I had to go back to work so we employed Jess to dog sit. Briefly she was probably the best paid dog sitter in Yorkshire. Like us, she was confined to the dining room (with her laptop) initially and she had an early scare when he snapped at her but she continued for some months, even when I went part time. 

By now we had employed the services of a trainer, ex police dog handler Dave. I had put Zeus on his lead because I knew he would jump at him, and as he came in he got the full experience, barking, growling and jumping. He went back to his car and returned with a rattly can of pebbles or similar. One shake had the effect of interrupting the aggression immediately, Zeus went to his bed and we had an initial interview where Dave instructed us about how to be in control of Zeus at home; when to reward him (good behaviour) when to ignore him, something the Dogs Trust had said never to do, (bad behaviour) and when to interrupt him with the can or a noise spray (Pet Corrector). In practice we hardly ever resorted to the noise devices, just the appearance of them was enough usually. I noticed however that Zeus was very subdued when Dave turned up  subsequently and I am sure that was his memory of the initial noisy can. The mealtime issue was solved in minutes: When Zeus tried to get to our food I just put him out in the kitchen for 1 minute, then let him in again..... and repeat. On the third time he just lay down in his basket. The next day I only excluded him once and he went and lay down. Finally we got Dave to demonstrate how to walk him. He  said the harness was just giving Zeus a perfect pulling opportunity and told us to get a decent collar (Zeus was just wearing his Dogs Trust yellow collar) and I got a strong brown leather one - Zeus has worn 2 collars together ever since! We went out with Dave and Zeus nearly pulled my arm off as usual. Then Dave took the lead and Zeus walked like a show dog. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It looked like magic, but of course it was technique, confidence and leadership and he taught me enough to make our lead walks much easier. The lead ragging was one of the few occasions where I reverted to the Pet Corrector and it stopped that behaviour in a couple of days with no more than 4 or 5 uses. So we had a dog that I could walk with some degree of control, no lead ragging, and not attacking us at home. He still reacted to people and dogs on walks by lunging and barking. Dave didn't really have much advice on that apart from to keep a good distance and plan ahead. More of that later.

Early on we had learned that Zeus had considerable reach. He could take stuff off the kitchen worktops and dining table with ease and he was good at standing on his back legs for height. This meant very little at home was safe and quite a few people experienced Zeus's paws up on their shoulders and maybe a closer face to face encounter than was comfortable. So we taught him "off" which was essentially a reward for returning all 4 paws to the floor. It certainly worked in the kitchen but we knew that anything we didn't want him to eat needed to be securely out of the way. We bought him a range of toys, and he definitely liked anything with a squeak but his focus was always on getting to the squeak by tearing the toy apart. And he showed great persistence in this quest. Many "indestructable" toys succumbed but in the long term the best toys were knotted ropes. Although he would eventually destroy them too, the lifespan was measured in weeks rather than minutes and they became favourites stored in his own basket. I had tried getting him to chase a ball early on. His attention span for this was very limited and usually he wouldn't give the ball up for a second or third try. Two balls sometimes worked but invariably after a minute or two I would throw a ball again and just get a sort of "well you get it then" look!

There was also the "mad hour". This was an early evening event when Zeus would race round at home, sometimes running (or pursuing me) round the dining room table, getting out all his toys, jumping in and out of bed and sometimes nipping at me. Then he would abruptly switch off and generally sleep through the evening until his night time walk.

We also had an early experience of the vets. Probably only a couple of months after getting him home, Zeus became unwell over a few days, vomiting intermittently, then straining unsuccessfully to poo and stopping eating. The vet examined him, felt something in his stomach and he was kept in for an operation which located and removed a piece of a fabric dog toy in his small intestine. I was terribly upset, felt it was my fault and very relieved when he came home after a couple of days and returned to health in about a week. To this day the worst sound I can wake up to is Zeus retching.

Part 3: Settled in

So there we were. I was part time working 20 hours including only one full day, Zeus was walking better on a lead and after a while he seemed ok to be left at home for a while too. There were things i learned early such as putting a post box on our gate, never leaving him in the garden unless I was there and having him tethered so he could lie out at the front door on his cushion in the sun which very quickly became one of his favourite spots. Walks were mostly fun. We were near the woods and many of our walks started there, down to the canal and often walking along to Sowerby Bridge or Elland, or even up to Norland Moor. Zeus's "off leads" were few, simply because his recall was terrible and we didn't want him knocking anyone over or worse. Once he chased successive squirrels in a beech wood until we couldn't even see him and there were several anxious minutes before he came back down a steep slope like a slalom skier. I worried about his lack of dog interaction; he reacted to most dogs at any distance and seemed to single out specific individuals too ranging from a pair of dachshunds to a husky with attitude so i had to keep distance and learned to hide him behind cars. He was besotted with a nearby Akita however but the Akita's view of this was clearly different and unfriendly. Somehow Zeus never seemed to recognise this, even after the Akita bit him in the head one day and they had to be kept far apart.We had a few attempts at walks and play dates with friends' dogs but with little success until we met Danielle and Sadie. Sadie is a Staffordshire bull terrier, very similar age to Zeus and they were very excited to meet through my wrought iron front gate. So we took them to a nearby enclosed field and bravely let them off together. After several minutes racing around together they settled down and this became a regular date with a walk added on. Zeus had the advantage of speed because of his size, but Sadie had way more stamina. More of Sadie later. We also had a few walks with a friendly labrador owned by someone at work and it was clear that once Zeus had met a dog and become a friend I could rely on him remaining friendly with that dog forever.

We soon started booking holidays, usually to Northumberland but also to Norfolk and down to Sussex to visit my elderly father. Zeus was generally good with these journeys and he always settled quickly in any new location. As long as we were there and he had his cushion it was home as far as he was concerned. He loved walking, new sights and smells particularly, and water. He probably hadn't seen the sea before we took him to Filey one day. He obviously thought it was alive, ran down to the edge then away as the waves came in, then some doubtful paddling with gradually increasing enthusiasm. He never really took to swimming although on a few occasions when he fell in a river or canal it became apparent that he could swim enough to get himself out. He could jump stiles, fences and walls with ease but often without grace! On one occasion he went over a 5ft dry stone wall without warning presumably "interested" in the sheep on the other side. He was on an extending lead at the time and I had to walk him back to the farm gate to get him out of the field. It was a good job it wasn't locked because picking him up was always hazardous. One day we were walking on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire and unexpectedly came across a very narrow stile over a wire fence. Nothing could persuade him over so I had to pick him up to lift him over. He flipped like a fish out of water, whacking me on the nose with the top of his head and bringing tears to my eyes.

On rare occasions we took Zeus to the pub for us to eat out. I kept him under very close control and was occasionally complimented on his behaviour. We always had to be careful with waiting staff approaching though. By now Zeus was muscular and fully grown weighing in at 50kg and it was important to anticipate what he might do as his strength was enough to pull me over if unwary. We also camped a few times. Zeus was fine in his own compartment in our tent. He did tend to bark if people walked by in the dark but i generally reckoned that was probably a good thing!

Part 4: Zeus and my family

We had quite a few trips down to East Sussex to see my father for our holidays. Zeus seemed perfectly relaxed with him which might be because he was fairly sedentary and certainly never moved quickly. I did have to remind him (frequently) not to pat him on the head as Zeus generally would flinch if anyone did this, raising questions about how he had previously been treated before the Dog's Trust or during his previous short rehoming. He also met my sisters and seemed friendly to them, also my niece and 2 nephews who were teenage at the time. However he took against both my brothers in law and my father's "lady friend". I wondered at the time if he knew somehow who was genetically related to me  (by smell maybe?) but perhaps he was just making his own character judgements. 

In 2016 my father ended up in hospital for a few weeks and Zeus and I had several trips down to Sussex, joined by Ann when possible. The outcome of this was that my father moved to a flat in Halifax and Ann and I became his carers together with some nurse colleagues I was able to employ. Some of the time I had to stay with my father and Ann stayed with Zeus at my house. Ann had her own house in Halifax too so we often shuttled between 3 different properties. When I could I walked Zeus from one to the other  for exercise and to avoid putting him in the car unnecessarily. Later I ended up staying with my father nearly full time for over a year and Zeus was almost always with me. I had to keep him clear of other visiting carers as it was apparent he didn't welcome them.

Part 5: Pack walks and the Happy Dog House UK

Zeus's reactivity to dogs and strangers didn't really change and I learned about a trainer doing group walks for reactive dogs on Savile Moor, just at the end of the road. We made contact and started walking with a group on a Sunday morning. Initially Zeus had to be kept at good distance from the other dogs, many of which were also reactive but he gradually became more tolerant and made some dog and human friends. Belle and Freddy were probably his favourites. We got to know Philippa, the trainer and she did some 1 to 1 training with us (more show dog walking from Zeus) and we also did a couple of courses on reactivity and recall. We never really cracked recall with Zeus but all of this made him more tolerant. The pack walks extended to twice and then three times a week, and I did as many as I could. We became part of the "Encounter walk" group which was a bit more challenging in busier areas and generally ending at a cafe or pub where the dogs had to settle while we partook of bacon sandwiches and coffee. Over several years and more than a hundred group walks I saw a huge improvement in Zeus's behaviour and he and Philippa became close friends. In fact he was never more excited than when he was meeting her or Sadie. When we moved away we were sad to leave the HDHUK family and we returned a few times for pack walks and to see friends. We were also proud to have been part of HDHUK charity fund raising particularly the first Dog Walk in the Dark. Ann and I still argue about whose idea this was!

Part 6: Joint problems and operations

One day up on Roils Head Rec with Sadie, Zeus was running off lead and pulled up suddenly limping. it was bad enough to visit the vets a week or so later and they diagnosed a cruciate ligament injury. We did the usual rest and painkillers with some effect but the limp soon returned and he was clearly favouring a back leg when getting up after rest. So we ended up at Chester Gates orthopaedic department late in 2017 when Zeus was nearly 5 and he had his first TPLO (tibial plateau levelling operation). The vet reassured us that the meniscus was intact and the outlook was good. The worst part of this is that the recovering dog is not supposed to exercise for 4 weeks. Zeus had never been in a crate and this was not the time to start so he laid on his cushion at home half covered with a blanket and wearing a pair of children's tights (!) and I occupied the sofa next to him for about 10 days until the wound was sufficiently healed. We were supposed to get the stitches taken out at the vets but Zeus basically did the job for them! 4 weeks ends up being a long time and I had to walk Zeus after 3 weeks because he was going nuts at home. Anyway the outcome was good and apart from trying to avoid him jumping anything we were back to walking with no problems. We had been warned however that the problem could occur on the other side and indeed late in 2018 it did. So we ended up at Chester Gates again and he had the same operation on the other side. By now he weighed in at 60kg which I think was his highest ever weight. This also meant the operation was even more expensive (over £4000, thank goodness for Petplan). I pleaded in vain that he was wearing a very heavy collar..... This time the meniscus was badly damaged and most was taken out. But Zeus still made an excellent recovery and seemed untroubled walking.

Part 7: Sadie.

Zeus and Sadie were established good friends and when Danielle had twins I offered to walk Sadie at times. I took her out on my own, also on the pack walks with Zeus (Ann would normally take Sadie) and sometimes I took them out together. Sadie became a frequent visitor to my house, sometimes while Danielle was at work and she and Zeus seemed happy. Sadie wasn't entirely on board with young children and as she and Zeus got on well I talked to Danielle about me adopting her. There was a progression from walks to time spent together then some overnight stays and eventually some longer visits for a few days at a time. There was a worry when there was an altercation over who got fed dinner first but this didn't seem too serious and we just fed them apart in different rooms with doors shut. We were within a few months of leaving Halifax and about to become a 2 dog home when there was a serious fight when i was distributing some treats. It became clear that having them together was going to be a serious risk that could end up in significant injury or worse. Anyone who has tried to separate 2 fighting bull breeds will understand. We are still all friends and Sadie has visited us since.

Part 8: Moving to Cumbria, living the best life

In 2020 we moved to Cumbria after my father's death and my retirement. Ann got a job in Whitehaven and we moved into a cottage at Ennerdale Bridge. From here we can walk up to Ennerdale water about a mile away, walk along the lake shore path and return on a different route and variations of this became our daily walk with beautiful views, frequent paddling in the lake (mostly Zeus but also me and Ann at times). We had other options up to Cold Fell and it was only a short car journey to St Bees to the sea or a little further to Seascale or Ravenglass for a softer beach. We did some more strenuous walks too including around the Ennerdale water and around Buttermere.

One day I had walked up to Cold Fell with Zeus and as we started to return home we met a limping fox hound which followed us for a bit. As with most hounds there was no collar or tag. I tried to ring the police but couldn't get through and by now the fox hound had wandered off. However at a small parking area near a cattle grid two walkers had come across it and managed to get hold of it and get a spare collar and lead on it. They were trying to get it in a car to take it to a vets to get the chip read when 2 men turned up with a terrier looking for a lost fox hound from the Eskdale and Ennerdale Hounds. I learned subsequently that this is a fairly common occurrence. So the hound went off with them. However while this was all going on Zeus and I were near the cattle grid and every time a car went over, Zeus reacted, shaking and panting and he then towed me all the way down hill home. After that he just refused to ever walk up that road again which was a problem because there are only really 2 ways out of the village on foot and one was now closed to us unless we went by car. The fear of cattle grids also transferred to other places which could be problematic for example when we went to a park in Cheshire on the way back from holiday. He heard a car go over a cattle grid and refused to go on so we had to return the way we had come. This was not the only example of a single event that led to long term effects on Zeus. They can learn what you don't want in an instant, but take forever to train!

By 2022 Zeus's stamina seemed a bit reduced and by now he was 9 years old. He still enjoyed his walks but he had definitely slowed so I reduced the frequency of his longer walks to 2 or 3 a week and we did shorter routes along the river or just into the woods or up to Ennerdale Mill (derelict then and now sadly demolished). He also had some episodes of limping but these settled with rest and a bit of paracetamol. He was still loving his beach walks in Northumberland on holiday and some fairly level walks around Cogra Moss. We also had some visitors, Danielle, Sadie and friends, Philippa with Sybil and Kirsty with Bert. I made quite a few local friends through dog walking although Zeus's dog interactions were fairly few. There was a couple with several wolf hounds and a young English mastiff and Zeus and one of the wolfhounds were really friendly while the mastiff was timid and backed off. This was an unusual situation where Zeus was comfortably the smallest (at least shortest) of a group of dogs! 

Part 9: 2023 and problems

I've mentioned Zeus's reactivity to people and dogs on several occasions. It would be fair to say we had a few near misses over the years often involving cyclists (who seem to think I have eyes in the back of my head) runners and other walkers. Off lead dogs were also a problem but we generally had this covered; Ann is an expert at heading off other people's dogs ("don't worry, he's friendly.....") and even on my own I would just hold Zeus up close and use my legs as a barricade if necessary. It would be true to say Zeus got bitten by more dogs than he bit! I regarded it as my job to keep him safe from other people and dogs (and that included keeping him from biting anyone). However early in 2023 I made a mistake that mattered and he bit someone who had come to make a delivery to the house. The injury was spectacular but not physically serious but the result was that the police came to interview me. Without going into detail the outcome was that Zeus was ordered to be muzzled unless actually indoors at home from October. I genuinely didn't think this was going to be possible but there wasn't a choice so we started muzzle training with plenty of cheese and other rewards and help from Philippa who came to Cumbria twice to help with this. Somewhat to my surprise not only was it possible to muzzle Zeus, but it didn't seem to bother him that much. He was still engaged in his walks and sniffings and could drink out of puddles (his favourite water apparently). I was obviously concerned about walking a muzzled dog which wasn't helped by the publicity about American bullies. In fact only one person directly asked about it on a walk and we just explained the reason honestly.

Zeus had been limping at the beginning of the year. There was no obvious injury but it looked like it was a front leg problem. However it settled with rest and we just carried on. He seemed all right through the summer and I achieved a long standing aim of getting him to the top of a fell (Blake Fell at 1800ft) and we had a holiday in Eskdale (a whole 15 miles away!) where he seemed good on his paws and managed a good few miles. In late September we also had a holiday in Scotland. Zeus had been limping a bit before this but seemed all right on holiday. We walked about 6 miles along the cliffs (avoiding cows) and also had a good walk through the forest. But in October he had another episode where he just pulled up on a local flat walk and was clearing favouring his right front leg. We had no option but to slowly limp home but again this improved after some rest.

Part 10: Finale

2 days before Christmas we took Zeus out for a local circuit through the woods, maybe a couple of miles altogether. Again on the way back he pulled up lame and holding his right foot off the ground. We limped home and rested him but this was a limp that never recovered. We were going to our favourite seaside holiday cottage in Northumberland but we took him to the vets the previous week. She was concerned, especially that he had not improved with rest over 3 weeks and that he had lost muscle over his shoulder blade. He had some different painkillers and we went on holiday, limiting his walks to about half a mile on the beach. After our return he was booked in for X rays and then we got the worst news that he had osteosarcoma (bone cancer) affecting the upper leg and shoulder joint. This isn't rare in dogs, especially big ones and particular breeds including mastiffs. It's incurable and I knew Zeus wouldn't have a life as a tri-paw because of his size so he just had higher doses of painkillers and we have done our best to look after him at home. I really wanted him to have a final walk on a beach in the sunshine but that proved impossible and with worsening pain and mobility we had to make a terrible decision to have him put to sleep. We asked one of our local vets who knew him to come to the house so that Zeus would at least be in his own surroundings. She was very kind but it's so upsetting to order the death of your friend. We had him cremated locally, also a painful decision and we will scatter his ashes in some of his favourite sunny spots in due course. The few days so far without Zeus have been painful and emotional. There's a big Zeus sized hole in our house and in our lives.

So that's it. Zeus has gone and we have to get on with our lives. There will be other dogs, but not yet. We knew from the start that Zeus would be a challenge, and he was. There were ups and downs along the way but if I could go back to 2013 I would choose him again without hesitation.

Appendix 1: Zeus and the car

Once we had persuaded Zeus to get in my car boot at the Dog's Trust, all seemed well. If i opened the car boot at home and then the front door he would run straight out and leap in. However over time he got less happy with car travel, it would often take 2 or 3 run ups to get him to jump in and if I tried to lift or help him in he was growly and snappy. He was also clearly getting stressed in the car, panting and drooling. It wasn't at all clear why this happened. I had changed my car from a Saab 93 (hatchback) to a Skoda Octavia estate but there was no obvious point that Zeus changed his mind about car travel. But by the time we were coming up and down to Cumbria he was really getting averse to the car. I think this was exacerbated by the winding roads on the last stretch to our village. On the day Ann moved in to Ennerdale Bridge I had driven a large van with furniture etc. Zeus had come up in the back of her VW Tiguan. My plan was to take him home in the van - in retrospect this was never a good idea although we had got him in the front of a van before. Anyway he absolutely wasn't having any part of it and I was going to get bitten. So i left him at the cottage and took the van back to Halifax then the train to Carlisle where Ann picked me up and we went back to persuade Zeus back into the Tiguan. This was also a battle but we got home. I worried that Zeus would never get in a car again so I took him on the encounter walk to Sowerby Bridge and Ann met us in my car. He surprised me by getting in willingly. But there were further trips to and from Cumbria in the next few months and Zeus was clearly unhappy with the car. Once we moved permanently in April 2020 (yes that's lockdown), we tried occasional car journeys but we got to an impasse where Zeus simply would not get in. We had a holiday booked in Northumberland which we gave to Ann's daughter and for several months we didn't try and get him in at all. Then late 2020 we had to go to the vets for a lump on his paw. I decided to get a harness to help lift him in and made sure to wear a thick coat and gloves. Maybe I caught him by surprise but getting him in was pretty simple. Coming home he was dozy from the anaesthetic so I just lifted him in again. After that we tried occasional car journeys. Each time I put his harness on he started trembling and his tail went down but with encouragement he would mostly jump in after a run up or 2 (or 3). Then it gradually improved and we could go on holiday again. And he didn't seem stressed in the car, no panting or drooling, just lying down and sleeping. Come end of 2023 and he had to be muzzled in the car too. Again I| thought this would be a problem but I felt a flexible muzzle might be more comfortable than his metal Leerburg style. So we made a muzzle out of biothane modelled on his metal one and tried it on a few night time walks. After a few adjustments it was ready to try in the car and he tolerated it well including journeys up to 3 hours. 

Appendix 2: Osteosarcoma

I'm not going to write much about this but there's a link for more information. Suffice it to say it is fairly common in dogs, especially big dogs and certain breeds including mastiffs. Realistically there is no cure, even removing the affected limb only prolongs life by months because there are always secondary deposits elsewhere in the body at diagnosis. And it's a fast growing tumour and painful. 

https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/musculoskeletal/c_multi_osteosarcoma