A new dog! A new dog! A new fluffy, silly, playful, matted… filthy… untrained… dog… Hmm. Maybe this celebration should be put on hold until I get the burrs cut out of her ears and the potential flea problem has been addressed?
Ah, what am I talking about, we got a new dog! Whee!
I volunteer once a week at the local no-kill shelter and yesterday my husband came along with me to take pictures of the pups for Petfinder. The photos they have up now are okay but they’re all taken against the cinderblock kennels or chain link outdoor enclosures and don’t make the average person feel all that warm and fuzzy. He brought his fancy camera and a paper backdrop and we paraded the dogs in one by one for their closeups. It was a fun day despite the cold and the photos came out great. This is the first time he’s been in an actual shelter (we also volunteer at a sanctuary but it’s a whole different scenario) and even though this one is actually quite nice (old building but clean as can be and very organized) he was bummed that the dogs were on concrete floors instead of laying on couches getting belly rubs like our spoiled pups do. Especially when he spied a shaggy gray face in one of the outdoor enclosures. He actually spotted her as soon as he pulled up, and came over to tug the arm of my sweater. “There’s a Sprocket dog here…” he said. Sprocket, of course, being our shaggy gray dog and pretty much the love of our lives. Throughout the photo shoot he kept looking over to where she was quietly sitting with her kennel mate, tail slowly swishing in the mud and a small grin on her furry chops. She knew she had his number.
I saved her for last, letting her into the yard where we were set up with a flourish that was mostly just me being silly. We have 2 dogs already and although I’m of the “more the merrier” mindset (within reason of course) every time I’ve brought up adopting a third dog Mr. Tavi has chuckled and shook his head.
We took some pictures of her, I joked that we shouldn’t bother since they would never make it to Petfinder.
Imagine my surprise when, as we were packing up, Mr. Tavi asked the receptionist “so, what’s the adoption process?”. Fast forward 15 minutes and Miss Shaggy Pants was in his car, headed home.
So far things are going well. She’s rejected my Lab’s invitations to play (a couple of times she showed teeth in telling Molly to BACK OFF) but maybe she’ll warm up once she’s settled in. I sure hope so, Mol needs a playmate. Sprocket has been unruffled by her presence which is the absolute best I could hope for. He doesn’t really care about other dogs much. She slept on the bed with us last night (after a bath. Dear Lord was she ever dirty) and wasn’t fussy. No resources guarding issues as of yet, she seems afraid of the cats (and she ought to be, 2 of the 3 are jerks), and she was awfully patient in the tub. She didn’t love it, but she allowed me to work the shampoo into her fur and cut some of the worst mats from around her mouth. I wouldn’t let someone handle me so aggressively 2 hours after meeting them!
So now we’re at 3 and 3 and the animals far out number the humans. If they decide to team up and rebel we’re sunk.