h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After we went to Petco, I took the dog home. I introduced him to my neighbors who were not very impressed. Shel barked at them and never did warm up to them. They had a thing about smaller dogs. Shel was about 24 lbs. My neighbors had a dog, but she was a larger husky/shepherd mix. And in spite of having a dog, I don't think they were actually dog people. IMO if you're really a dog person you don't discriminate against dogs who don't fit your size requirements. Dogs are dogs.

I got some food from the other neighbor who had the dog the same size as Shel. Shel was hungry and ate. We went to bed. The first night at my house was rough for him. He was on and off the bed all night and kept me awake.

We had a badly fenced yard and when I let him out in the morning, he dug underneath the fence and got out of the yard. He wanted to explore the neighborhood and it was a trick to get him to come back. I don't know if he was looking for his former people or just checking things out, but I was finally able to persuade him to come back. When he didn't want to be caught, he would stay just out of reach.

As I mentioned, I took photos of him and posted them with a Found Dog sign around the neighborhood where I found him. I heard from a couple of Westie rescue organizations who said they'd take him, but I'd already decided that if his original people didn't claim him, I would keep him. I never heard from anyone who was missing him. I'd been thinking of getting a dog around this time, but never seemed to be quite ready.

Like I said, I think he was abandoned because he was bad and his former people couldn't be bothered to train him. He didn't seem to have any training. I did some training with him but not as much as I could have. He learned "sit" and "lie down" and "stay". He got pretty good at stay. (I say that compared to my current dog who is completely baffled by "stay") He was a pretty smart dog I think. He knew how to get into things anyway.

It took him several months, I'd say for him to come to terms with being my dog. I don't remember when it happened. While he was attached to me from the beginning, it took a while before I could count on him to come to me if he got out of the yard. (We did fix the hole under the fence and he did stop digging, but he still occasionally got out) The first time we went to the dog park, he refused to leave and wouldn't let me catch him, but he loved the dog park and so I took my chances taking him there.

I, myself, underwent great emotional turmoil in the course of getting used to having a dog. It made me so sad that he was abandoned by his original family. And it was intense having a new dog, like nothing I'd experienced. He was very high maintenance in the beginning. I don't remember well if I was working regularly or not, but I'd say probably not, because he had terrible separation anxiety and would bark and cry for hours when ever I'd leave. And he'd shred shoes and books.

[Amy P]

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