Cindy is a cheeky Great Dane whose predilection for chewing all his clothes and furniture, not to mention stealing his food, has caused some consternation for chemist Sean Burke.
But Sean still loves her anyway.
Cindy is able to run around now and have fun destroying furniture but she didn’t start out that way. Sean found her while he was a volunteer at Animal SOS in Sri Lanka when he found the nine-month-old Cindy in a horrific state and barely alive after the neglect of her previous owner.
Watch the video of Cindy below.
[rumble video_id=v5ky5h domain_id=u7nb2]
Video credit: Rumble
Back then, Cindy couldn’t even stand and was covered in sores, feces, and urine. The 51-year-old was so moved at the sight that he worked to rescue her and spent £5,500($6,900) to fly her back to his home in Frodsham, Cheshire.
Nowadays, Cindy isn’t only healthy, she’s quite naughty as well as she has made it a habit to ruin multiple pieces of furniture and clothing. Because of her height, Cindy can even steal food from the kitchen shelves.
Cindy spends time running around the 5-acre garden with her ‘boyfriend’ pooch Eddy, another rescue pup who is paralyzed.
Sean said: “She’s constantly hungry. We spend around £60($80) a month on her food alone, and she gets through a kilogram and a half of dog food a day.
“Recently she’s nicked a whole chicken, a bag of duck feed, and a pack of butter.
“She’s chewed so many shoes and coats, she’s always knocking things over, and my wife has no cookery books left – she’s ripped them all.
“She can cause a real mess, but I certainly don’t regret the money I spent – that’s what money is for.”
At the time that Sean found her in Sri Lanka, Cindy was only 15 kg when her ideal weight should have been 45 kg. Her sorry state shocked him so much that he became determined to save her.
He said: “She had six or seven cuts where I could see right through to her bone – it was death’s door stuff.
“Great Danes are status dogs in Sri Lanka, so she was bought to show off. But she was put in a small cage and hardly fed.
“I couldn’t leave her in the state she was in.”
After waiting four months and a 12-hour flight, Sean’s wallet was £5,500 lighter but he was finally reunited with Cindy in June. Cindy, who is 5’8″ when measured standing on her hind legs, now looks totally different and healthy as evidenced by the fact that she has all that energy to be a nuisance in the house.
Sean added: “We’ve had to ban her from the kitchen when we’re eating because she’s so big her head would be in our dinner plates before we knew it.
“But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
“My wife was a bit shocked when I told her that I’d adopted a Great Dane – but even though Cindy has caused all sorts of chaos, neither of us would be without her.
“I’d agreed to adopt Eddie already, but when I saw what an amazing bond the two of them had developed, I couldn’t take one and leave the other.
“They are devoted to each other. They go out digging in the garden and I often see Cindy burying Eddy in the holes he’s dug up. I just see Eddy’s bum sticking out the ground.
“Cindy lost most of her sight after her treatment as a puppy, so she is always running in the wrong direction and getting lost in the garden. Eddy often has to go and fetch her.”
In the case of Eddy, he was found on the side of a busy road in Sri Lanka after a car had crushed his back legs. These days, Cindy and Eddy are inseparable.
Sean added: “I think they’re so close because they’ve healed together. At the sanctuary, they slept together on a big duvet, and they still do. They eat from the same bowl and are never too far away from each other.
“Eddy isn’t as agile as Cindy because of his legs, but you wouldn’t think that when you see them running after the rabbits.”
Both Sean’s wife and daughter were taken aback when he told them they were taking in a Great Dane but they were also excited as well.
“My daughter was chuffed and couldn’t wait to show all the pictures of Cindy to her school friends.
“We were all so happy when they arrived because animals don’t often make the plane journey. Once we saw them at the airport, we knew they’d be all right.”
Sean was on his fourth visit to Animal SOS when he encountered Cindy and Eddy. He was all praises for the charity and is even willing to adopt more dogs if necessary.
He said: “The charity currently has around 1,600 dogs and cats that have all been through similar experiences to Cindy and Eddy, and have been left to die. I would love to give more of them a chance.
“They don’t euthanize any of the animals and they never give up hope despite the obstacles they face.”
Kim Cooling, the charity’s founder, is based in the UK but frequently visits Sri Lanka. She says that the charity has its hands full tending to the many disabled and injured dogs on the island.
She said: “The charity’s ethos is to give animals a chance. We rescue dogs like Cindy and Eddy on a daily basis and nurse them back from the brink of death.
“Animals that would be classed as ‘hopeless cases’ do survive, as these two wonderful dogs prove.”
Replaced!