This is a dedicated page towards my dog, Filou! I've now spent the last ~8 years with him and he means a lot to me.

I've adopted him in 2010 from our local animal shelter. They imported him from a partner shelter in Hungary. He was the only one left from his import wave, all the other ones were adopted already. I don't even understand why, because he was pretty, very quiet and kind instead of barking aggressively like all the other dogs. He was always very polite, respectful and careful :)

We don't know much about his backstory at all as the shelter was not able to say much. From the way he is, it seems like he must have been in a family as a puppy and raised rather well. But something must have happened and he landed on the street. His ears are not breed-folded, but never fully went upright due to malnutrition. He was adopted in Hungary before, but was brought back because he did not respect the child and stole food from it. To this day, he thinks children are rather weird and will tense up around them if they run around.

The shelter was a little angry at him the day we visited him because he severely injured the eye of the other dog he shared a cell with. Still to this day, he is very fearful of other dogs and will try to run away until he sees no other way but to attack. He sadly has the kind of fearful/nervous aura that makes other dogs immediately lunge at him, even dogs that are always kind to other dogs on the street. We've tried a lot of training, but one off-leash dog that is rude always ruins the progress!

In general, he is a rather calm and careful dog who loves to spend time on his own and is very independent. He doesn't mind being alone at all and he usually comes up to you if he needs something and otherwise will be in other rooms or somewhere in your vicinity sleeping. When he wants to talk and trusts you, he is VERY talkative though, reaching Husky-levels of sounds. Some minutes every day, he becomes VERY cuddly and demands attention, but other than those, he is not very needy at all. He seems to feel too warm quickly and goes to find a spot on the bed or sofa that is cooler. He also refuses to lie on anyone directly, even just a little (and I would not mind if he did!). I was only able to coax him to fall alseep on me a couple times because there was a blanket on me and he could pretend he's just lying down on the blanket.

Another thing is that he never learned how to play before I got him, so I had to teach him to fetch and how tug of war and other little games worked. He figured those out and occasionally likes to play, but he really has to be in the right mood and initiate it himself.. and fetch doesn't work at all anymore because he hates when the stuff bounces off the floor and hits him in the nose, lol. He's also not the kind to play with the toys himself, sadly. I think growing up for him was very serious and very dangerous in regards to other dogs, so there was no space for play.

But he is hilarious still! When he gets into his playful mode (dubbed "being silly" by me) he gets the zoomies and acts completely wild and like a normal, trauma-free dog would, and I love to see it! He jumps around and makes funny faces, increasing his funny moves and zoomies the more we laugh, as if he knew we are laughing about him and tries to make us laugh more. Due to his clumsiness, there are also many moments each day that look a little funny. Especially when he looks forward to getting leashed for a walk, jumps up and down a little bit and he loses control of his legs and accidentally tips stuff over. He is also known to occasionally snore loudly and also bark and walk in his sleep, which looks and sounds adorable. And he is ticklish on his back feet, which is very sweet. He'll even kick you back when you do it :P He's also the source of at least one meme in a Discord server I am in, and it is about his smelly farts.

After the adoption, he made huge strides in gaining healthy weight and muscle, learning tricks, growing comfortable with his paws being touched, slowly showing his personality, and a reduction in his nightmares and random fearful screams. He also stopped trying to herd us around. Recently, he has stopped being fearful of men, but to be fair, I also only bring quality male friends into my home.

In 2019, he had a lipoma removed, but sadly since then, keeps growing them! In the same year, he had a phase of medical issues unexplained to this day. He was weak, had an epileptic seizure and then lost motor control of the right side of his face forever. We ruled out a stroke, poison, tick diseases and a lot more. He has since recovered and also regained a little control again (can move the corners of his mouth back better when panting and can blink again) but it is still very visible. People usually assume it's the other side though. His paralyzed side used to droop down, but within weeks, pulled itself up and is now higher than his mobile side, so that one looks like it's drooping instead. I'm mostly using images pre-disease on this site, but when you see some with his lopsided face, don't be startled.

Since 2021, he has been diagnosed with thyroid disease, Cushing's disease and arthritis. The Cushings was a mystery for over a year, when I finally saw information about it online trying to find out once again what made him so sick for a while. I then brought it up to the vet and demanded him to be tested and I was right. Since then, he has regained a lot of his liveliness back and often acts like he is 6 years old again :)

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