Calling all Dog Lovers!

How exciting! After years of my oldest daughter asking for a dog, she finally resorted to writing very sweet requests on notepaper and leaving them for us, everywhere – top of the stairs, on the floor, night stand, bathroom counter – everywhere. They were usually along the lines of, “Mama, Daddy, Can we please get a dog? I will take great care of it. I like Jack Russells, Golden Retrievers, etc. or even a mutt from the pound. Please think about it. Love Hope.”

Finally, we decided that we’d get a dog. My husband, while he loves dogs had some requirements – 20 lb. or less, non-shedding (or little shedding), well trained, house broken. We knew we wanted an older dog to meet those last 2 requirements. I contacted a top dog trainer in our area and we went to the pound. We found an adorable little wire haired terrier mutt that was around 5 years old. I filled out the paperwork, named her Scruffy and sent her home with the trainer for “doggy boot camp”. He would train her and in 3 weeks, a perfectly trained dog would come to live at our house.

Well, at the end of 3 weeks we brought Scruffy home and adored her. She obeyed everything perfectly and loved to be petted and walked. She wasn’t as playful as we’d hoped, but that was ok. DD had her dog and that was what mattered. The trouble started about 3 weeks after we got her. She began to have SEVERE separation anxiety. She would shake when I left the room, but the worst was that if we left her at home for any reason, she would poop in her kennel and then roll in it. The trainer was not very hopeful that we would ever correct this behavior as he had tried and said it was a severe case, but still we tried EVERYTHING to help train her in this, but after a few weeks of bathing her at least every other day or so, we threw in the towel and called the shelter. They were understanding and said to bring her back. So after a long, tearful good-bye, I took Scruffy back to the shelter. Apparently, this was one of the reasons the previous owner gave her up, but I didn’t know that when I adopted her, nor did the trainer until about 2 weeks into her training. 

So, the search was on again. A few months later, I was searching shelters on Petfinder.com and looking at different dogs up for adoption. My trainer assured me that he would transfer his services to any new dog free of charge as it had been very expensive with the doggy boot camp for Scruffy. This time, my husband let me up the weight limit to 35 pounds to allow us to broaden our search. We looked for several weeks online and in person and never found the right one. Then one night while searching small dogs on Petfinder, I gave up and closed the computer for the night. A half an hour later, I decided to look a little bit more and went back to Petfinder. Why I clicked onto a German Shepherd Rescue link, I don’t know as I’ve never seen a German Shepherd under 35 pounds, but anyway… As I was reading about these adorable dogs, I saw a black dog named Sophia Loren, who was BEAUTIFUL!

Sophia wasn’t a pure bred German Shepherd, but listed as a Shepherd/Black Lab mix. She was the personal pet of the rescue owner, who just happened to also be a dog trainer. She was adopted by the rescue owner at a few weeks old and had been in training to become a service dog! Well, her affinity for squirrels derailed her service career, but she was trained to open cabinets and retrieve items, sense anxiety attacks and was used as a therapy dog at nursing homes and with autistic children. I loved her already and knew she was the one, but she was 50 pounds! Bigger than my husband wanted inside of the house. Reluctantly, I showed him the photo and pointed out that she was already trained and he agreed that we could meet her.

That weekend, we met the owner and Sophie at a local dog park where dd ran her through the agility course and we talked with the owner asking very detailed questions as to why she was re-homing her. It turned out that she had taken in a new Shepherd that she felt would make the service dog cut (for herself) and felt she was being unfair to Sophia and wanted what was best for her. Sophia was perfectly house broken, trained to sit, stay, come, heel, shake hands, give kisses, go to bed, fetch things, you name it. We were in love!!! Even my husband was convinced that she was the dog for us. 

However, we still had to pass the home inspection (the rescue owner was very thorough, too) and we had a negative in our column in that our yard isn’t fenced and we live on the water. The owner was concerned that Sophie would run after wildlife and possibly be hurt. However, after the inspection, she agreed to let us adopt Sophie – wahoo!!!!

The day I brought her home was fabulous. The kids just adored her and she loved them, too. She LOVES to run, play, climb to the treehouse, work on her training, play hide and seek, have her belly rubbed, growl hello to everyone and frighten the living daylights out of them because it sounds very ominous, esp. considering she is solid black w/ huge shepherd ears, giant canine teeth and often wears a silver pinch collar (that squirrel thing).

She is precious and is a terrific judge of character, too. Last month while we were reading on the couch in the late morning a strange man knocked very loudly and persistently on the front door. I could see the man and he could see us – me nursing the baby and reading to the 2, 6, and 9 year-olds. He could tell we weren’t coming to the door (double doors – solid glass) and began to knock more angrily. About that time, Sophie answered his knock with the most ferocious barking and snarling I have ever heard from any dog. Her ears were pinned back and all of her hair stood up on her back. He hightailed it out of here on foot like his life depended on it! Later, I learned that a neighbor’s house a few streets over had been burglarized that morning by a man matching this man’s general description. Sophia had scared the dangerous intruder away. In reporting the incident to the police, the officer pointed out that the dog had saved our family from a robbery or perhaps much worse and that the man didn’t care that we were home and would have kicked in the door, were it not for the dog. He also said that dogs are the best home protection available! Well, needless to say, Sophia was given even more loving attention and fresh grilled chicken for dinner!

We love our dog and are thankful that we found the right one for us. I know this is not helpful in determining what kind of dog to get, but hopefully it will encourage you that the right one is out there! I think I’ll go pet my dog now.

Best wishes on your search!

~ Christie

If you decide that you’d like to be talked out of getting a dog – I’ve been keeping a list of reasons not to get one so that I can review it in my moments of weakness!    It includes a myriad of Facebook posts from friends lamenting various dog capers/issues.  I think that I’ll be able to stand my ground… at least until I get the last child potty trained, for now we have a dog grandparent attitude – call us when you’re going out of town, but be sure to pick them up when you return.  Enjoy!

We lost our standard sized dachshund early in the year, and have just adopted our new 28 lb dachshund.  He is four years old and adorable.  He is crate trained and I agree that crate training is a huge bonus, he goes in whenever asked and there are a few times when this is important.  We have a friend who is allergic to dog saliva and so when she visits the dog is happy in his crate.  We love dogs and also recommend  Cesar Milan for training methods.

So good look with the search, my one piece of advice would be don’t treat the dog like a small human and remember don;t let him/her become pack leader of your home.  You must be in charge from day one.

I second the “Don’t let them rule or be a mini-human”.  You’ll totally regret it.  We were watching a Dog Whisperer episode one time and Cesar said something that I sort of understood and I mentioned to my husband about the position God put man in as oppose to animals.  He did say for them (Adam) to rule over them (animals) and it just made more sense to me the type of techniques Cesar uses.  It is okay or even *right* to rule over them.  I believe (with domestic animals, especially) that that means to train, love, respect, care for etc., but that also means to keep the chain of command in place.  Cesar does expect the humans to be in charge and not allow certain behavior from their pets as it is disrecpectful to the animal to let it live with us like *animals*. 

Does that make sense??  For instance, my in-laws have/had very unruly animals and instead of expecting different behavior they just let it go on forever.  It was a always a disaster to go over to their house.  The dogs wouldn’t stop barking/yapping, jumping on you, etc., because they allowed them to be the *pack leaders*. It was miserable to go over there, impossible to sit down or even have a conversation.  They love their animals but do not train/rehabilitate, like Cesar says, or have any expectation on their behavior.  okay, I’m off my soap-box:)

My husband just put in a small garden and put up a wire fence thing around it (I really don’t know what to call it).  It has worked so far.  Of course, you may have  much larger garden that would not be as easy to fence or may be more costly, so that is your call.  We HAD to start small with our garden because this is our first go around with more than just tomatoes:)  Going great, so far:)  We had green onions for our salad that my 7yo son made!

Our new dachshund who is 4 years old, helped me plant my flowers the other day – he digs beautiful big holes at the speed of light!!!  Only problem, when I put the plant in and cover it with soil then walk away, he goes over and digs it up……..we have a slight challenge on our hands I think in our gardening pursuits.  Good luck with yours Heather.

Hmmm I will give that some thought Heather, My garden is not very big, but I may be able to put a sandbox in if the problem persists.  Oh he is a sweetie, and very clever, catches on fast, so maybe we can teach him to leave things alone without too much hassle.  It was funny to watch though – if he would just dig the holes, it would be perfect makes planting very easy – we will see how it goes, I have a lot more to plant in the next couple weeks.  Cesar Milan does give great advice, I love his techniques.  Thanks again – Linda