On Thursday, just over a year later, he collected a blue ribbon declaring him a champion.
The first day of this year's Cranberry Cluster Dog Shows, a multi-event competition hosted by the Cape Cod Kennel Club and the South Shore Kennel Club, marked a monumental comeback for Nando.
"I look at that dog, and not a limp on him," said Peter Schneider, Nando's owner, as he watched the Leonberger trot around the fenced-in show area.
Just participating in a show seemed like a long shot last year.
Nando came to Harwich in 2011 from Quebec to serve as a stud for Mary Davidson, who breeds Leonbergers. Already a young show champion in Canada, the then-2-year-old with shaggy brown and black fur was meant to be here only temporarily.
But soon after he arrived at Davidson's house, something — maybe a coyote — spooked Nando, she said. The dog bounded through a closed glass window, shattering it, then used a kennel in the yard as a step to jump onto the garage roof and over Davidson's 6-foot fence.
A Harwich police animal control officer later found him but, unable to fit the massive animal into any of his crates, he fastened Nando in place with a leash on the back of his pickup truck. But as the truck started moving, Nando jumped through a small opening in the truck, still attached with the leash.
Several distraught motorists dialed 911 when they saw the [Animal Control] truck dragging the dog by the neck near the intersection of routes 39 and 137.
After the accident, Schneider, 64, of Needham only intended to help take Nando to and from off-Cape veterinary and physical therapy appointments, he said.
"When Mary (Davidson) called me, I picked him up just as a favor," Schneider said. "I just fell in love with him and he fell in love with our house."
Schneider adopted Nando. In those first months, he said, Nando limped about between painful skin grafts and daunting physical therapy. Heavily medicated, he lost about 30 pounds and ate little.
Schneider slept on an air mattress next to Nando for the first three months after the accident.
Cathy Schneider, 61, his wife, said Nando never lost his happy-go-lucky nature.
"He's just such a cheerful Gus," she said.
Under the grooming tent Thursday, Nando leapt up, putting his front legs on Peter Schneider's chest to lick his face when he opened the door to his large, metal crate.
Stepping into the ring with handler Sue Burrell, Nando stood still as the judge ran his hands over him, squeezing and examining him like a physician.
The judge checked out Nando's three competitors and watched as they jogged a lap around the ring alongside their trainers. Within minutes, Burrell held Nando's blue ribbon.
The Schneiders are unsure whether they will continue showing him, but intend on volunteering him as a therapy dog in hospitals and other facilities, Peter Schneider said.
"The only reason we decided to show him was to prove to ourselves and the world that this dog, who was almost dead, is fit enough to stand in the dog ring," he said.
(Cape Cod Times - Sept 14, 2012)
