Show Dog Survives and Thrives, After Mauling

Have you ever let your dog out on a cold day, shivering as you shut the door behind her?

Maybe you spent the five minutes she usually uses to sniff reverently around the fenced yard brushing your teeth or scrambling eggs.

Have you then opened the door, called her, and felt a quick jolt of panic when she didn’t materialize at your feet?

Usually she’s just out of sight, retrieving a fallen branch, sniffing rabbit tracks, or peering through the fence for your neighbor’s German Pincher.

But for Brenda Algar, a day that started just that way warranted the panic she felt. Her champion show dog Sydney (whose full show dog name is GCH. Ri Lee's Diamonds Are Forever), a Tibetan Terrier, was out in their yard with her 13-year-old Golden Retriever, Buster. “I opened the door and there were no dogs,” says Algar.

She walked to the far end of her Wiscasset, Maine property and Buster was standing still, staring at her. “It looked like Gettysburg; blood everywhere,” she says. Next to Buster was Sydney, staring hard at Brenda and falling, in slow motion, onto her side.

Algar has had dogs all her life. She shows dogs, she breeds dogs, and she considers her dogs family. She went straight into action.

“I scooped her up, got Buster in and tied up Syd’s shoulder, where she was gashed, with a dish towel,” Algar says. “I’m not a vet, but I wrapped that towel like a tourniquet.” Then she drove "like a lunatic" to the vet.

Sydney had been bitten. They vet could see the bone. But no one knew what did it. Buster was the only witness.

Major Veterinary Surgery

Sydney made it through a surgery that basically sewed her left front leg back onto her body, leaving her with stitches from shoulder to paw.

As a Tibetan Terrier Sydney is a member of a 2000-year-old breed that comes from the Himalayan region of Tibet. Her long doubly thick coat once gave her ancestors protection from harsh mountain climates; It also looks like flowing silk in the show ring.

 “They had to shave her,” says Algar, something that would never do in less dire circumstances.

Though Sydney made it through the surgery and was being given antibiotics daily, her wound became infected. “They had to go in, clean everything, and do the surgery all over again,” Algar says. But after the second round, it became infected again. The vet thought it would be best to amputate.

She would have let them, if it meant saving Sydney, Algar says. But there’s something about Sydney. “She’s intuitive and she loves showing.” Sydney has a walk in the show ring that Algar calls the, “My [expletive] don’t stink walk.”

It’s no wonder. Tibetan Terriers are special—considered holy in their homeland. Bred by monks and kept in monasteries as good luck charms, the first Tibetan Terrier to leave the Himalayan region was given as a gift to a British physician in 1920: He saved a Tibetan man’s wife. His own wife later established the first Tibetan Terrier kennel in England.

Alger took Sydney to the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University for a second opinion. The staff gave her an ultimatum: three days.

Intense Wound Care

“I had to flush the wound every two hours and keep Sydney on her meds and if, by the fourth day, her infection was gone, she could keep the leg.” Sydney did keep her leg, although all her vets said she’d have nerve damage.  

Finally, after eight weeks of keeping the leg tightly wrapped and Sydney confined so she wouldn’t be tempted to use it, the bandages came off. “I put her down in that same yard, crying, expecting to see her drag her leg, and she took off like a bat out of hell!” says Algar. “She ran all around the yard with Buster until they collapsed and then she popped up and looked at me like, ‘OK now what?’”

She was headed back in the ring. “Well, I had to wait for her coat to grow back some,” says Alger. In the meantime a neighbor with a Springer Spaniel stopped by to tell Algar that he’d shot a bobcat on his property.

“It must have wandered down from the north. They aren’t very common where we lived,” Algar says. Algar will never know exactly how it got past her 6-foot-fence, or what scared it away, maybe Buster.

Later that year, with a slightly uneven coat, Sydney won Best of Breed against the top 10 dogs of her kind in the country, showing that despite her ordeal, she exemplifies her breed.

She went on to win the highest honor in conformation showing, her National breed club's Specialty. She has also won the First Award of Excellence at the Eukanuba National Championship (2010) and the Second Award of Excellence at the Eukanuba National Championship (2011) as well as the First Award of Merit at Westminster (2011). In addition, Sydney has been a Top five Tibetan Terrier in the US for the last two years and is a multiple group and specialty show winner.

This year, she’s headed to Westminster again.

“Dog show people are so supportive,” says Algar.

Her friends from showing and Sydney’s breeder, Nikkie Kinziger, were amazed that Sydney’s temperament hadn’t “gone south” after the incident.

But that’s her breed. Tibetan Terriers are hearty and loyal and, even though they’re small—weighing  in around 20 lbs—they have big dog personalities. “She isn’t cowering or afraid,” says Algar. “If anything she’s even more of a show off than she was before.”

Don't forget to watch Westminster on Feb. 13 from 8PM to 9PM on USA and 8PM to 11PM on CNBC, and Feb. 14 from 8PM to 11PM on USA!