Take a Chance
We knew it was time to start looking again, and everything worked out very fast.
There aren't a lot of medium/large dogs up for adoption in our county shelters right now, but there was a courtesy listing up at the SPCA. When we saw pictures of Chance with a baby playing all over him we knew we wanted to meet him. We like to have dogs who are known to be good with children for the obvious reasons of it being majorly awkward if they turn out not to be. So, a plus!
His family can't keep him because they're moving and couldn't find a place to accommodate him, so our timing was great; he was one day away from going into a greyhound rescue.
Yes, greyhound, because he's half greyhound, half border-collie. It's an unusual mix but he's very beautiful, like a small greyhound in shape but with a border collie's head, feathery tail and white tail-tip, and freckled mittens. He's named Chance because he was a very awkward teenager indeed, having been returned twice for having "something wrong with his hips" that turned out to be an adolescent growth spurt that had his hind legs growing much faster than his front! He's evened out now and runs like the dickens. So he was on his third chance when his prior family adopted him, and now he's on his fourth chance. Hopefully he won't need any more!
He has a lot of prey drive and isn't very gentle on the leash, even with the gentle leader (which amps his leverage down to the point where I can manage him.) We're playing a lot of red light/green light with him while we wait for his obedience classes to start, and doing pre-class training that he very much enjoys. He's exuberant, loving, good with dogs, good with kids, likes people, loves being petted, loves playing with toys, intelligent, and energetic. He's completely worth all of the work it'll take to get his walks easier, and taking him out for potty breaks on lead until he has a recall we're sure of (because he goes over our little fence like it's not there.) He's very much the most visually oriented dog we've ever had, which makes him really fun on walks because it's very obvious what he's paying attention to. Sometimes he tries to pay attention to everything at once!
We've only had him since Saturday, but he's already fitting in really well. He likes to snooze through most of the day, and he's so sweet natured and curious that it's just a pleasure to have him around. He was a hit at the vet yesterday; we've been very lucky to have dogs who love the vet and he's no exception.
