At Arun Veterinary Group continuity and building a relationship with a family is vital and our teams become part of the family of their patients. When its time to say goodbye to a family member, we share your grief and pain.
Richard and the Pulborough team recently had a very sad morning when the day came for a family to say goodbye to a much loved, personal companion – AND colleague.
Yogi was a very special boy indeed and his Mum and Dad sent us a very kind email to express their thanks but first we would like you to hear about Yogi.
By Yogi’s Dad
“Yogi was a German Shepherd, born in March 2007, his father was an operational police dog and his mother a police brood bitch. At the age of just 8 weeks he was allocated to me as a replacement for my current working dog who was nearing the end of her service.
Over the next 12 months, Yogi experienced socialisation and early training for his new career whilst being part of the family on his time off. He lived at our home.
At just over 1 year, together we began an intensive 12 week course at the Metropolitan Police Dog Training Establishment during which time Yogi learnt the skills he would need to become a Police dog. He was trained to track and search for people, chase and detain criminals, also search for discarded items such as drugs and weapons – as well as being very obedient and courageous. He successfully completed his course and passed out as a licensed police dog. We were based in North West and Central London.
His main role was to attend incidents and to search for hiding suspects. He was very good at this but as a result of his excellent training, he also had a talent for trials (where his skills were tested against other dogs in competition).
At the age of 2 he had success in this area and London region levels, finishing 11th in the National Police Dog trials against competitors throughout the UK.
He repeated this performance the following year.
His operational work was becoming more and more important and he had a number of successes involving violent criminals – some armed with weapons. On several occasions suspects were scared from their hiding places on hearing his bark, rather than being found by an angry German Shepherd.
He was also trained in a public order role and we spent a lot of time at football matches and demonstrations. Some of our other roles were providing protection for the Royal Family at Windsor Castle and anti-terrorist patrols at Heathrow Airport.
In 2012 I retired after 32 years service and on our last day we received a commendation for our actions during the 3 days of rioting that affected London in Summer 2011.
Fortunately Yogi was able to retire with me and began his life as a pet, although he was quite confused when he didn’t get to go to work with dad anymore!
Yogi saw out his retirement in West Chiltington, enjoying many of the local walks. Despite his fearsome reputation, Yogi made an excellent pet and was much loved by all our visitors.
Yogi was put to sleep last week just 6 weeks short of his 13th birthday as a result of health issues. He will be hard to replace and sorely missed.”
Our very grateful thanks those to Yogi’s Mum and Dad for these words.
“On Tuesday 4/2/20 my German Shepherd Dog Yogi was put to sleep at your Pulborough surgery.
I writing to express my thanks to all your staff. Richard was magnificent, he took all the angst and stress out of the situation. Yogi was treated with respect and dignity that was missing in my experiences with previous dogs and different vets. He even came out to check that I was in a fit state to drive home afterwards. Penny was brilliant when we booked the procedure, dealing sympathetically with two blubbering owners passing the phone between them to get the details across.
The nurses particularly Kate, who readily climbed into the boot of my car to help with an albeit sedated enormous German shepherd, was full of compassion for him and me.”
Next time you visit our Storrington hospital, take a look at our gallery wall dedicated to service dogs just like Yogi. We hope to add a picture of Yogi to our wall at Pulborough.
In memory of Yogi
2007 – 2020
Please note this article was pre Covid 19 before social distancing rules came in place.