Wonderful Week

What a fabulous week we have had. At the beginning of my week I had been somewhat stressed and frustrated as 2 of our long termers were starting to really show regression. Our Copper boy was starting to grab at his gate door and pull on it with his teeth which is a BIG sign of being highly stressed. If we didn't get him out soon my fears were his anxiety would quickly snowball. Well I am happy to say the universe constantly reminds me that we truly know nothing because here came this couple who had 3 Malamutes before and saw our Copper boy online and decided to come see him. They had just lost their last Mal. a week prior and weren't sure they were ready until they saw our boy's pic on our website. The only thing they were unsure about was he is about half the size of what they are used to. Their last 3 were all around 150 and here was our little (HA) 65 pounder. Since I am a jokester and did the showing with them they kept saying how wonderful he is buttttt his size....I said well ya know kids you ARE getting older hee hee (they were in their 50's probably) and we laughed about it and they finally decided the one con was not worth all the other pros that Copper had and they trucked him off back to Alpine. The wife called the following day to ask some questions. Since we are all used to it being a call about a problem, we all held our breathes as I answered the call. Lo and behold all she wanted to ask was how much we were feeding him! WHEW! She told us how wonderful he is already and following her around the house and laying at her husband's feet and even nudging them in the morning to take him out to potty. Another wonderful home for a wonderful deserving pet.

Usually Sat.'s are our big days as that is when our newbies become available and people are lined up to meet with them. Of course at least 4 out of the 10 got adopted that morning which is lovely since they won't have to stay in bizarro world for long. The only small (and I mean REALLY small)sad part is you don't get to spend much time with them and if people bring them back to visit us which we LOVE, I don't usually remember them. This Saturday was particularly wonderful because we had a woman come in to see our Bogenaught. She was told about his Lupus which is treatable and that he had a history with another family. She brought her 12y old Shepard mix with bad hips to meet. This threw up a worry flag since Boge likes to play rough..too rough usually. She came back with her son and her dog and we did the intro way off site since Boge does better away from the shelter with meeting new dogs. He wanted to play with her right away. He tried to mount her a few times but the gave him warnings that he listened to but would then smack her with his paw, go into a play bow and bark at her till she wanted to play with him. He must have know she was old because he really respected her warnings and would finally go and stand by the son for a bit but would come back and try to get her to play again like a little kid nagging you for something he wants. I gave the woman lots of info on how to watch their interactions and how to help tech him that certain behavior is not allowed. She seemed to adore him and felt her dog was pretty comfortable with Boge and decided they would make a good match. YEAH! Perfect timing as Boge was another one showing signs of his threshold level reaching it's limit. He started biting at his leash and refusing to go back to his kennel. Wow 2 babies out in the nick of time I might say. One can only hope they will all be happy with each other and live out the rest of their lives together. If not then as I heard one person put it.."then they just got to have a nice adventure" and we will wait for the next people to come along for them.

Other than our Shaq Attack we have two other little ones who will be getting some much needed time up front with staff. We have our deaf, very cute, vicious little Chihoo Marge. I call Marge vicious only because when she is on leash and she sees other dogs she acts like a Pit Bull with rabies! She doesn't care their size or look, she will go for them like they are meat on a hook. I was daring one day and decided to see if Shaq and Marge could coexist up front for a bit. OH BOY WAS THAT A MISTAKE. I had Shaq, and another staffer had Marge and as soon as she saw him she started going off like a rocket. I think some of that foaming from her mouth hit me in the eye! I tried to get her to settle with treats but once our other food hound Shaq got his face in there Marge went for him and he was not about to let some tiny little whipper snapper 1)take food from him or 2) think she was boss over HIM. He retaliated and fortunately didn't get to bite her head clean off, especially since it's about the size of a treat, but it was close. After that lack of a love fest going on, little miss bossy thang got to stay up front by herself for some much needed down time. Hopefully someone will fall in love with her soon and be willing to work on her doggie "issues"

Our sweet little Ann and Shaq will have to share their time up front with Marge for now.The odd thing I noticed about Marge and our Ann is that they both tend to do circles. When Ann hears a lot going on she just keeps doing them and sometimes hits her little head into the wall :( sad. Ann has been going home with different staff and volunteers at night since she seems to have a hard time being alone. Marge has always done circles but seems to do it less now that she has had some deaf training and more interaction.

Hopefully when I get back from my days off more of our longer term babies will be gone. Especially Shaq! Keep sending out that positive energy!
Thanks for tuning in!