My Secret Garden: A Pony Tale: A New Addition

Over Valentine's weekend, my SO finally got me to cave and go to the Humane Society to look at dogs. "We can just look." Cause, you know, I'm a cat girl. Never had a house-dog before.

Yeah, so you know how that always turns out.

They had a promotion going on. $14 adoption fees. It was the end of the weekend. Not much was left. What I did discover is that 95% of the dogs there are pit mixes, because the others get adopted. Now, I have no problem with them, I know some fantastic ones that are the biggest babies anyone has ever known. And I also know the struggles the owners have in that they are truly a misunderstood breed.

He fell in love with one named Anya. Bright brindle and white, sweet girl who wagged her tail at anything that moved. We went back and took her out. She took to me. This was not a good thing, as she thought that meant she could leap on me from behind me on the bench. And she was 60 pounds of pure muscle. Then she started playing with the boy. And she played with teeth. Not saying she bit, because she didn't. But her first reaction to playing was to open her mouth, and I don't like that in any dog.

So Anya went back into her kennel. Sweet girl who needs a home with another large dog and plenty of room to run to expend some of that energy.

So we went back the next weekend, because the boy just wanted to double check. We walked the runs again, and this time he wanted to see Anya again, a similarly colored male named Roberto, and a plainer, slighter, darker one named Roxanne.

Roberto came first. He was a sweet boy. Has been in the shelter for quite some time and has some hair loss issues (he had mites), but seemed to be low energy and calm. He also seemed to give not one fuck about either the boy or I. So, sweet boy, not quite the one.

We tried Anya again, same issues and she went back to her place.

Then came Roxanne. Like I said, slighter of build, although just as muscle-y, and another quiet one. But she came up to me and put her head in my lap for some scratches. Then she hopped up on the bench next to the boy and sat leaning on him. Just sat there. Um, yeah, you've been chosen.

I did not plan on having a dog. Not a dog that I could not easily take to the barn (she wants to play with the little dogs, and there may have been a problem in the past with treat aggression between her and a former foster's dog.) Not a dog that isn't at least kind of fluffy. Not a dog this soon (I thought maybe we would get married first. Or he would be more settled in his job.) And not a dog that I will have to tell my mother is a pit-mix. Because she does not get it.

But we had been chosen.

So we began the chore of gathering up all the stuff we did not have. The boy had some toys from a former dog, but that's it. Crate? check. Doggy bed? check. Gates to keep her off my brand new, horrifically expensive couch? check. Bowls? check. And understanding with the boy that this is HIS dog? Check?

Wednesday we went and picked her up.

Meet Roxanne ("Roxy")

She hopped right in the truck, happy to be going somewhere. She mostly just sat on the seat and looked out the windows. Only tried to get on the center console once, but listened when told no. We took her a walk around the block immediately at the house, where she pooped (Had my bag, yay me!). She pulls and the boy does not know how to correct that. I've done some reading, and it seems you do the same thing for that you would do for horses, STOP. Let them pull against themselves, and they will realize that if they pull, they don't get to go anywhere. We will be having some obedience lessons in the future, but for now, that seems to be working. I'm sure there will be plenty of posts about how we have no idea what we are doing.

Roxy and her daddy, bonding.

We got to the house, where she got a drink of water, and we both sat on the floor in the living room with her. All she wanted to do was lay between the two of us. After about an hour, I said something about how I wished she would go get in that expensive bed I bought. About 5 minutes later, she did. And there she stayed until bedtime.

She loves her bed.

We put her in her crate, which she was not too happy about. She cried. We closed the door (she is not allowed in the bedroom area of the house.) Both of us tossed and turned all night, worrying about her.

In the morning, she was fine and wiggling from front to back with happiness to see me. I took her out, got her breakfast, and we sat together while I ate my cereal. The boy got up and stayed with her all day since he was off. They played some, but he wasn't feeling well, so not too much. I played ball with her when I got home. Then she slept a lot of the evening.

She pulled her blanket out of the crate for a comfy place to lay while we were getting dinner ready.

She went back in the crate with no issue last night. I left Tchaikovski's "Peter and the Wolf" playing on repeat to keep her company, which she seemed to enjoy. We heard not a peep. She was happy to see me in the morning, and we went outside after breakfast and played catch and met the neighbor puppies. She really is a good girl: house trained, loves people, doesn't bark hardly at all. And she's really cute.