Well… it happened again. We went to the shelter yesterday and came home with a dog.
Abby’s been sleeping a lot. She seems bored, lonely and maybe a little depressed. Charlie’s been gone 2 months now. If he comes home, we’ll just have 3 dogs. In the meantime, I believe Abby needs another companion.
We were at the shelter on Thursday and we walked and played with this adorable brown boxer/pitbull mix. He was so docile and calm. No jumping or extreme behavior. I wasn’t sure, so i told the kids that we need to sleep on it and we went home.
Yesterday we went back to get him. I was still a little unsure so I said a brief prayer on the way. “Please give me a sign that this is the right dog or not. I don’t want to have to ever take anyone back to the shelter, so please show me before we leave with him.”
We got there and put a leash on him and went to take him for another little walk, but this time as we entered the front desk area, the boxer suddenly and quite viciously lunged at the big cage full of cats in the corner. It was all I could do to hold him back. That was our deal breaker. He didn’t do that the day before, but with two feline family members at home, whoever I bring home has to respect that.
We were a little sad as we took him back to his cage but when we got there, the dog in the cage NEXT to his was sitting calmly just looking at me. It’s a dog that the kids had been eyeballing the day before but it was on the other side of the building. They must’ve moved him Thursday night after we left or Friday morning.
Michael said, “Mom? Can we pleeease just take him outside for a walk?!” I agreed and he willingly put his head in the loop of the leash and we went outside. We adopted him 15 minutes later.
Here’s the funny part. When I got Charlie back in January, one of my signs was that his name was Copper. Copper was a dog we used to have several years ago.
This dog’s name was Patch. That’s our current cat’s name.
Of course we had to change his name. He’s so beautiful with his longer hair. A good dose of husky has given him 1 & 1/4 white/blue/icy looking eyes, and he has spots. Abby has stripes. I think it’s TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME that I now have a stripped dog and a spotted dog.
I took immediate leadership the moment I allowed him out of the cage and he responded perfectly. We came home and he and Abby were introduced in the yard because that’s a more neutral territory. She was immediately smitten.
We took a good walk together as a pack to help him blend right into our family and then we came home and did a bit of a psychological workout. It helps him accept discipline and me as his pack leader. He did REALLY super well. Then I fed him a big ol’ scoop of food. Poor thing is all bones.
We had him for 8 entire hours before we went to bed and HE DIDN’T PEE ON THE FLOOR EVEN ONCE!! I think this one actually CAME housebroken. Which is REALLY surprising. He was at the APL for 2 entire weeks and he was brought in by the dog warden. He’s SO skinny. It’s way more than only 2 weeks of being hungry. I don’t imagine he’s been in a home for a month or more.
Usually they forget to pee outside after that much time. Of course, there’s nothing I’ve ever seen a dog respond to so readily as being dominated by a pack leader. So maybe it’s a good dog / good pack leader combo! Either way, a dog that’s pees outside is my favorite kind.
So anyway, I posted some pics of him on my site if you’d like to see him. He has black around his eyes almost like a mask, and from the moment I saw him, I thought his fluffy tail looks like that of a raccoon. We tossed out loads of names and we didn’t all agree on any of them. Then it hit me… “Bandit!” SO… We dub thee, Bandit the Dog.
He’s a Catahoula Leopard Dog/Husky mix.
