so...we have a dog.
Buddy and his human came over Thursday night to do a home visit and see what we thought of each other. We really, really, really had not meant to make a snap decision, but we kind of fell in love with him and sort of got pushed into taking him for a trial adoption for two weeks, after which we hopefully keep him for reals. (So the first thing we did after his human leaving him was take him to Mud Bay where the helpful salespeople helped us acquire all the paraphernalia for having a dog. This was probably not the best way to do things, but we all survived.)
You can see pictures of him here. We thought he was about two but apparently he's about four, and he's mostly pit but we've no idea what else he might be. He's about sixty pounds and is at a good weight now, and he's very, very sweet.
The biggest problem we've had so far with him is that while he was fine with both of us Thursday night, something changed Friday morning and he was suddenly terrified of Morgan. He kept growling and barking at him and if Morgan got too close he started trembling in terror. We emailed back and forth with K, the woman in charge of the rescue, and while a couple things didn't work we took him for a walk together and by the end of it he was fine with Morgan again. Today he seems fine with both of us.
We're a bit neurotic about wanting to take care of him properly, and we have a few concerns that I've emailed K about. Specifically, he had hives at one point and is intermittently chewing on himself where the hives were, and we can't tell if he's nervous or if the hives aren't gone. He's also yawning a ton and we don't know if he's tired or stressed, and we can't get him to go up the stairs at all so we're leaving that one alone. Also he doesn't seem to want to eat or drink unless we push the bowls toward him - our concern with that is that he might get dehydrated if we leave him alone for too long and he doesn't drink. (We're not free feeding, so the food is less of a concern.)
My guess is that a lot of this is him being apprehensive and settling into a new place, but I don't know for certain. We have a book I'm reading by Patricia McConnell and Karen London called Love Has No Age Limit about welcoming an adopted dog, so hopefully it'll give us some clues and pointers.
So that's life with Buddy, and this getting up at 5am is already not fun and we've only been doing it for two days, but unfortunately dogs don't get the concept of weekday versus weekend. So we'll keep getting up at 5am to take him out and feed him.
He is a beautiful dog, though, and very sweet, and he likes coming over for pets and snuggles. He won't go on the furniture if we're there (he did once but we think he was hiding behind me because it was when he was scared of Morgan), but Morgan came downstairs last night and he was on the couch. We don't actually care that much if he goes on the furniture as we don't have anything that's antique or irreplaceable, so it's okay by us.
Tips or suggestions on anything would be welcome. We're a bit worried about our ability to give him the amount of exercise he needs, and about what happens if we're out for extended periods of time. But we just had someone come out to check the yard for fencing, so hopefully once we fence in the yard we can set up a dog door and he can come and go as he pleases. There's also a part of the yard that would work as a dog run, which would be great.
Woof. And now I have to run to work.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1283200.html. Please comment there. |
comments
You can see pictures of him here. We thought he was about two but apparently he's about four, and he's mostly pit but we've no idea what else he might be. He's about sixty pounds and is at a good weight now, and he's very, very sweet.
The biggest problem we've had so far with him is that while he was fine with both of us Thursday night, something changed Friday morning and he was suddenly terrified of Morgan. He kept growling and barking at him and if Morgan got too close he started trembling in terror. We emailed back and forth with K, the woman in charge of the rescue, and while a couple things didn't work we took him for a walk together and by the end of it he was fine with Morgan again. Today he seems fine with both of us.
We're a bit neurotic about wanting to take care of him properly, and we have a few concerns that I've emailed K about. Specifically, he had hives at one point and is intermittently chewing on himself where the hives were, and we can't tell if he's nervous or if the hives aren't gone. He's also yawning a ton and we don't know if he's tired or stressed, and we can't get him to go up the stairs at all so we're leaving that one alone. Also he doesn't seem to want to eat or drink unless we push the bowls toward him - our concern with that is that he might get dehydrated if we leave him alone for too long and he doesn't drink. (We're not free feeding, so the food is less of a concern.)
My guess is that a lot of this is him being apprehensive and settling into a new place, but I don't know for certain. We have a book I'm reading by Patricia McConnell and Karen London called Love Has No Age Limit about welcoming an adopted dog, so hopefully it'll give us some clues and pointers.
So that's life with Buddy, and this getting up at 5am is already not fun and we've only been doing it for two days, but unfortunately dogs don't get the concept of weekday versus weekend. So we'll keep getting up at 5am to take him out and feed him.
He is a beautiful dog, though, and very sweet, and he likes coming over for pets and snuggles. He won't go on the furniture if we're there (he did once but we think he was hiding behind me because it was when he was scared of Morgan), but Morgan came downstairs last night and he was on the couch. We don't actually care that much if he goes on the furniture as we don't have anything that's antique or irreplaceable, so it's okay by us.
Tips or suggestions on anything would be welcome. We're a bit worried about our ability to give him the amount of exercise he needs, and about what happens if we're out for extended periods of time. But we just had someone come out to check the yard for fencing, so hopefully once we fence in the yard we can set up a dog door and he can come and go as he pleases. There's also a part of the yard that would work as a dog run, which would be great.
Woof. And now I have to run to work.
This entry was originally posted at http://blueraccoon.dreamwidth.org/1283200.html. Please comment there. |
comments