Pets Update

I don't harbor any illusions about keeping this blog updated on a regular basis again. But I figured I'd give it a shot just for good measure. Hopefully, it will inspire people whose blogs I read to update as well. Anyways, it's been a while, so there is quite a bit to discuss. I was going to do it all in one fell swoop, but it's turning out pretty long, so I'll be doing separate posts.

We adopted a dog in September. Much talk and planning went into this. (It's the reason I was cleaning off the upstairs landing in August: anticipation of a dog crate.) Dante is some kind of terrier mix, possibly some hound and whippet in there too. He's now about eight months old. I had no intention of getting a dog that young, but he honestly seemed like the best fit for our family. His original name was "Loafer" due to his low activity level indoors and his refusal to walk on a leash on the shelter's bare floors, making t necessary for the staff to kind of drag him around. After going through a bunch of name ideas, we settled on "Dante", after the main character in "Clerks. He's a wonderful dog. After a few weeks of me thinking that I'd made a mistake n getting a dog (which is fairly normal when I bring any new animal home), he settled in and became part of the family. He's fully housebroken, knows "sit", "down", "stay", "wait", "come", "crate", "hop up", "off", and "paw", graduated from his obedience class, and loves us both. He's absolutely fine with the bunnies - partly because we worked on introducing them and partly because his indoor prey drive is pretty nonexistent. Currently, his only real issues are barking at the door - which can be stopped pretty easily, his carsickness- which we're hoping he'll grow out of, and chewing on things that aren't his when we leave him alone for a while. He never shows any interest in doing this while we're home, so we're just resigned to crating him when we go out. Overall though, he's a terrific dog and I can't imagine being without him.

The story of another dog in my life has finally reached the point where I can talk about it this month, A couple of weeks before we brought Dante home, we had adopted another dog from the same shelter. "Dolly" (we never came up with another name for her) was a beautiful aussie/border collie mix with a likely difficult past. She was shy and probably had been mistreated before coming to the shelter. She seemed to be doing well around people when we brought her to the pet store and on her first walk, so I decided she would be OK coming to our neighbor's block party. On the way there, she was frightened by a kid bouncing a beach ball near her. She slipped out of her collar and ran away from me.

We spent the next two weeks trying to catch her and then to just find her. We called animal control, which provided very little help, and the Animal Rescue League, who were helpful, but unable to trap her. Eventually, we stopped getting phone calls from people who had seen her and we resigned ourselves to the fact that she was gone. We were both heartbroken. I felt like I had completely and catastrophically failed at the thing I had been planning for and looking forward to for months. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that if I didn't try again with another dog, this dog I had known for less than a day was going to keep me from feeling like I could have a dog for the rest of my life. That's when we returned to the shelter and adopted Dante.

Early this month, I got a call from a woman asking if I had a dog who was missing. Against all odds, she had found Dolly in North Reading, miles from where we'd last seen her. The woman had been patiently and eventually was able to get close enough to bring her inside. Totally stunned, I called Andrew and we went to pick her up. She looked remarkably well for having been loose for four months. We brought her home with us and considered what we would do. We wanted to take care of Dolly. But the issues that had caused her to leave us were still very much there. Though Dante liked having another dog in the house, he was constantly pestering her and she'd often end up growling at him to leave her alone. I had no way of knowing if they would be able to work it out eventually and it seemed like a bit much for Dolly. Though Dante was reasonably well behaved by this point, I didn't know if I had the energy to go through training and adjusting to another dog so soon. The decision became final when I was bringing Dante in from a walk and Dolly shoved her way past me and ran out the door. I was able to get her back before she got out of the driveway using the information I'd learned when she ran away the first time: lay down on my stomach, let Dante out as far as he could go on his leash, called to Dolly, let her come to Dante, and reeled him in until she was close enough for me to grab her harness. I realized that we just didn't have the facilities to keep this dog safe and that if we kept her, I'd be spending every day worrying that she might leave again and really never come back. We drove her up to the animal shelter, as we were contractually obligated to return her there if we couldn't keep her. I gave them all of the information I had on her: very shy, needs training, must be walked on a harness, should have a secure yard, likes other dogs if they're calm. We left a donation and said our goodbyes. I knew it was the right thing to do, but it wasn't easy for either of us.

A little over a week ago, Andrew's uncle who works at the shelter told us Dolly was adopted by a nice family with two older kids and a beagle. It sounds like a good match and I am confident that Dolly will be happy and well taken care of. I still sometimes wish I could have kept her, but given my history with her and our current situation, I know it wouldn't have worked. But now I finally know that she's being taken care of and loved and I can put her disappearance and all the guilt I had from it behind me.