FOR THE LOVE OF DOG

As evidenced by the previous post, I obviously did not get a dog on my first visit to the shelter. We went again today. We took my little sister along this time, though she wasn’t much of a help.

I won’t go into the details about the shelter again, but you can read them here. My father told us that he didn’t want to deal with the waiting list again, because last time, he had to miss an hour and a half of work to drive up there and just to be told the dog wasn’t there anymore. We stayed in the adoptive kennels area. We didn’t have a lot of time, because I had to go volunteer at ATOM at 1:45 and it was already 11:30. We picked out three dogs to interact with: a German Shepherd mix, the Malamute my father liked last time, and an Akita mix. My sister wanted to interact with a female German Shepherd puppy and a female rough Collie puppy, but they were only 10 weeks old. They were really small and I didn’t want to risk the baby treating them as if they were fun play toys, because they were small enough for even her to pick up.

The German Shepherd mix was very mellow, though he seemed shy and confused. He was very energetic when the volunteer was around, but when he left, the dog just looked at us like, “Who are you?” We spent about ten minutes with him and he eventually warmed up to us. The volunteer said that the puppy was very calm and submissive, but not shy and definately not unintelligent, as proven by a sit demonstration. She also said that the puppy just finished a heartworm treatment and wasn’t normally so mellow. My sister liked him a lot. In fact, she squealed, “I don’t want to see the other dogs! Let’s take this one home RIGHT NOW!”

We played with the Malamute outside, because the outside play area was available. He pretty much spent the entire time peeing and running around. He walked over to us a few times, but then he just ran off. The Malamute was very friendly, but we didn’t like him much, because he pretty much did his own thing.

The last dog we looked at was an Akita mix. He was very energetic and outgoing. My father liked him. He nipped our clothes, hands, shoes, and arms constantly, though. Biting is what puppies do, yes, but with a two year old in the house… well, they’re not great at teaching bite inhibition. My baby sister would probably hit him back or bite him back of he bit her. That’s not a great way of raising a Canine Good Citizen.

We chose the German Shepherd mix, because he was a lot calmer. He might become the Akita puppy once he gets his energy back, but at least we’ll have about ten days of post-neuter super calm dog that can adjust to everything. The hyperactive Akita would probably calm down after the surgery, too, but the two year old who kicked and screamed in the supermarket because I wouldn’t let her push a cart that was five times her size made it impossible for us to take him home.

The German Shepherd mix was at least four months old, so the shelter has to neuter him before they’ll let him come home with us. They don’t neuter on weekends, so we have to pick him up before 5pm on Monday. My Dad wasn’t too happy about that. Oh well.

We bought the basic pet stuff at Petsmart and Lowe’s Food Mart after we got back from the shelter, although we still need to buy a crate. I’ve heard Big Lots sells Vari 500 kennels for $30, but there’s no way to check without going there. I really hope they do, because the German Shepherd sized kennels in Petsmart are $200 for just the bottom half.

My dog still needs a name. I wanted to name my dog Atticus before, but this puppy doesn’t really look like one.