Our Dog Rescue

I wasn't blogging over the time when we acquired our .5 child, AKA our doggy. Let's start at the beginning of this story and after BJ and I bought our house we were ready for our next big acquisition, a dog. In March we went on our last big vacation before we got a dog and then BJ went on a business trip in the middle of April. The weekend he got back we went off to the pound to check out the cute doggies there. The problem was that I wanted a dog between 30 and 50 pounds, one that was around 2 years old, and one that was good with young kids since we wanted to have one soon. We were having problems finding a dog that met those standards for us. Most of the dogs we were finding were over 100 pounds or under 15 pounds. Others were not recommended for children at all or children over the age of 9. I was getting a bit frustrated with what our options were. Then we found Rescue The Wonder Dog.

She was about 30 pounds when we found her but they thought she would gain about 5 more pounds, the thought she would be good with kids and they recommended that she go to a home that could spend time with her because she was very skittish with EVERYTHING. So we got her and brought her home, once we would get her in the car. Found out she was scared to death of cars and refused to get into the car. She barfed doggy bits in the car on the way home and that should have been our first clue we were in for a bumpy ride.

Over the next 24 hours we figured out:

• She had difficulty with transitions. She refused to go through doorways which makes if very challenging to get her to go to the bathroom. (Now she has no issues with them)
  
• She is scared of her leash. We would have to chase her around the house and corner her to get her leash on then start running and get through the door. (Now as long as BJ or I put the leash on her she doesn't mind)


• She had gravitational insecurity. She didn't know how to go up stairs and would only take her front feet off the floor. It took her about a week to figure out how to get up the stairs and for the first couple of months we had to lift her in and out of the car.
  
• She had massive anxiety if you left her. Thank goodness we had a crate or else I'm not real sure what we would have lost. (She chewed a lot of towels).
  
• She didn't like the order of the house and kept trying to attack me. (Training took care of that)
  
• She was scared to death of any motor vehicle bigger than a bicycle, especially buses, dump trucks, tractors, and motorcycles. And when your house has a back yard that is for a construction dump site there are lots of things your dog doesn't want to be around. (Now she chases them as they drive by)
  
• She has no body awareness. She is the only dog I know that takes over a half an hour to pee, and will poop while walking.

Over the next couple of months we went to training school the really didn't work out for us. They even recommended us getting rid of her. That's when we found the trainer that worked for us. We went to 10 weeks of training and by the end we had a dog that trusted us and is not so scared of everything. However, she still doesn't do well with some people. In fact, for some odd reason she is scared to death of BJ's father. No clue why. Now our dog is still weird and here is what we need a doggy Occupational Therapist to work on with.

• Understanding when she is hungry. She won't eat for 24 hours then barf because her stomach is empty.
  
• Pee in less than 10 minutes.
  
• Her attention span

The list has gotten MUCH shorter over the last year and a half and most of the time I am glad we kept her. I do have to say though there are days that I threaten to sell her to the Gypsies.