Cabell is our most senior dog now. He's the dog that we adopted from Animal Connections 12 years ago this spring. He was to be Gypsy's companion and he was the only dog she would play with throughout her life. While Gypsy only liked Cabell, he liked everyone and still does. It is that easy going, amiable quality that makes him a good dog to meet, mix with, and test an unknown dog. Cabell is big enough to handle himself if a fight breaks out, but I can be pretty confident that he will not be the one to start it. 
That brings us to Cadence. She's a good looking 2-3 year old female shepherd that was taken in by a nice family as part of some program to foster military member's dogs while they are deployed overseas. To make a long story short, the guy came back but didn't reclaim his dog. The organization released it to the foster family, but they want to find her a good home. The problem is that Cadence is a female shepherd. She's an alpha bitch and rather protective. They can't walk her in the neighborhood because she intimidates other people and dogs that they encounter on their walks.
That's a story that I hear pretty often and as is usually the case, the people don't really know if the dog's barking is really aggression or just excitement. They were understandably relunctant to experiment and find out what she would actually do. So Cabell and I went to visit. I went in first, and met the dog in their back yard. She does have an intimidating bark and looked at me as if she wanted me to leave. Most people would have left, but I know a shepherd bluff when I see and hear one, or at least I like to think so. When I didn't scare off easy and didn't make eye contact with her, she came up and checked me out and we were fine. After that I could look at her, touch her, etc., and she was happy to have me throw the ball for her. 
I brought Cabell into her yard, contrary to traditional wisdom about meeting on neutral ground. I thought it was more important that they meet off leash without their respective people playing a role. Cabell isn't intimidated by female shepherds and he just walked on in the yard like he had always been there. She was fine, no real problems. She did make some dominance moves on him, but he was cool and didn't take the bait. 
I think Cadence would make someone a fine dog. She's smart, loyal, protective, devoted. But she would need the right home, an experienced home, and someone who is both willing and able to work with her and to accomodate her personality. She would be rather tough to place with the casual family home adopters that typify most of our applicants. Cadence has something else going for her, however, and that is a very strong, obsessive actually, ball drive. That is the single biggest trait that police dog trainers look for in assessing potential working dogs because it shows an intense drive, and it is what they use as a training reward. That's not the type of placement that I like or that I ever consider for one of my fosters except as a last resort. However, I don't really want to take her on myself, the owners want to hold her until she's placed, and I don't think she will be easy to place as a pet. They have contacted some police group and I encouraged them to follow up with them and see if that works out. In the meantime, we are going to try to help them find her a home as well. She is a good dog and I think could make a wonderful companion, but she's got some issues and won't be an easy placement.
Cabell performed his part of the evaluation perfectly. Since we were in town, we did about an hour's walk on the Rivanna River trail, which we both enjoyed. He seems to be doing pretty well again. I think his vomiting last week may have been due to his getting the cat's food on the front porch. I've now made a cat-friendly, but dog-proof feeder using an old airline crate, so that should be the end of that problem.
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