Furever ours, the Solstice gift

Clay and I don't exchange gifts with each other.  There is enough shopping to do for other people at this time of year.  However, it's the time of year when you can do the self-indulgent thing without feeling guilty.  Our gift for Clay will be a new electronic communication device of some sort, after the new version of whatever it is comes out in the next few months and he decides which one he wants.  Our gift for me is Trooper. 

Trooper doesn't show well at adoption events.  He greets new people by lunging toward their face with a big bark.  It's off-putting, to say the least.  But it doesn't take very much time or effort to win his trust, and his everlasting devotion.  I had the same experience with him when he first met me, but I took his leash, walked him around for a few minutes and then he rode home with his head on my shoulder. I took him to adoption events for a while but allowed only other VGSR volunteers to interact with him.  We would stand off to the side and I'd have to tell people not to look at him.  He's so damn cute that it's tough not to look at him, however, and of course people naturally want to look at a dog they are interested in.  His favorite part of adoption events was the trip home. 

Trooper didn't make much, if any, progress on his method of handling strangers.  Basically it's a fear thing, he barks and lunges to try to scare off whatever scares him.  If this technique doesn't work, he's got nothing else.  If he can't scare you he just gives up and makes the best of it.  What Trooper has, however, is a deep and abiding devotion to me.  I'm emotionally needy enough that I'm a sucker for a dog who likes me above all others.  He's ok with Clay, but he's clearly going to be MY dog in the way that Zachary is Clay's dog. 

The other anti-social dog we've had for years is Gypsy.  She's probably 12 or  more years old now, however, and has mellowed considerably towards strangers.  Our mothers will have a new dog that they will have to get used to now, and we'll have 10 or more years of needing to keep Trooper away from strangers until he mellows out like Gypsy finally has.  At least we have a boarding kennel where he's welcome and does well.  She's not afraid of him and that is the key to handling Trooper.  What I should do is make a concerted effort now to modify that behavior, get him to trust me enough that he doesn't feel the need to try to control situations that make him uncomfortable.  We will see. 

Trooper stopped going to adoption events a couple months ago when I had enough other dogs to take who had better prospects for adoption.  He didn't mind not going and he's been acting more and more like a permanent resident of the household over the past few months.  He has taken up guard duty, keeping an eye on everything from his vantage point on top of one of the platforms in the dog yard.  He alerts when the mail comes, the UPS man, or anyone else.  Our own dogs do that if they happen to be outside and awake, but the fosters generally don't.  Trooper has taken on the job as his own, and he's good at it. 

I bought Trooper a nice rolled leather collar and had a tag made with his name and our phone number.  He even has his first piece of collar bling, a souvenir key chain from the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfurt, KY. 

Trooper has been occupying a crate in the office at night, basically keeping the same indoor/outdoor routine as our other household dogs.  He's ready to make it official and I decided that this would be a good day to do it.  I was about to fill out the contract and write the check when I received a phone call from a good VGSR friend, who told me to send in the contract but not the check for the adoption fee because it had been taken care of.  That was a wonderful surprise and it really touched me.  Trooper is ours, all the good, and the bad.  He's not perfect.  His ears don't stand up, he's fear aggressive, he gets in the trash, and he eats poop in the dog yard.  But we take him as he is and love him as he is.  We can work on his problems or we can work around them.  I look at him and can tell that the good outweighs the bad.  I hope he feels the same about us.