Before you drag me by my hair off to the Pit, it’s a NO-KILL shelter.
Some of you may remember that the Ivy family capped off that wonderful month, Sept 2001, by having to put our German shepherd to sleep.
In December, Ivylad finally wore me down to get another dog. So I go to the no-kill shelter and see a beautiful dog, grey and white and black, with a curlique for a tail. Turns out she’s an unspayed Norwegian Elkhund with papers. Three years old.
We bring her home and name her Storm. She’s a beautiful, intelligent dog, very good with the kids.
Except.
She barked. And whined. And barked and howled and whined and barked. Every time we let her outside it was bark and whine and howl incessantly.
Thunderstorms…she could not handle them. Bark and whine and whine and bark.
So, I go to Petsmart and get a bark collar, the kind that administers a mild static electricity charge when she barks. It doesn’t hurt her, just gets her attention.
It doesn’t work.
Ivylad, recovering from major surgery and still on heavy duty pain pills, finds it difficult to sleep at night. He would lay down for a nap in the middle of the afternoon, it would rain, Storm barks and howls and whines and barks.
We try a muzzle.
She pulls it off.
I manage to hook the muzzle around the bark collar so she can’t pull it off. Poor thing is pretty miserable, but that doesn’t stop her barking and whining.
We can’t leave her outside because the neighbors complain. Consequently, she messes in the house.
We tried for nine months, but it wasn’t a good fit.
So we take her back to the no-kill shelter and drop her off. I know she doesn’t have emotions the way I do, but it still hurt to abandon her like that. Ivylad and the Ivy kidlets wanted to look at other dogs, but I had to run back to the car, crying.
After a bit I agree to look at other dogs, and we end up picking up a red chow/shepherd pup about five months old.
She doesn’t have a barking problem.
The shelter believes Storm will be adopted quickly because a)she’s purebred b)she’s unspayed c)she has papers. In any event, she will not be put down.
I feel guilty about having to return her, but it was too stressful having her around. Does that make me a bad pet owner? I can say we tried, and short of cutting her vocal cords (I never considered that for a second) we treated her well. She was loved and cared for.
Good bye Storm. I hope you fit in better with your next family.
Hello, Ember.