Get with the plan, Sam

I used two leashes, one on a collar and
the second on an Easy-Walk harness.

It turns out that the puppy's original name was Sam.  The last owner had named him Amos but it didn't appear that he knew the name, probably because he was living outside in a pen or on a chain most of the time.  So we are going back to the shelter's name for him:  Sam.  Green Dogs was able to get the original records from the shelter, showing that he had been vaccinated.  The adopter should have neutered him and probably was obligated to do so by contract, but of course he didn't.  It might have helped, it certainly would have helped.  But for this individual dog, he's better off getting a new home.  Their loss, but ultimately it will be the dog's gain.

Sam is learning the ropes around here.  He's marked in the house twice, but only twice and not at all since yesterday.  He's learning to crate although sometimes I have to shove his butt in there.  Once he's in, he settles down and stays without any problem.  Stairs seemed new to him, but he picked it up very quickly and was handling them like a pro after a couple tries.

Sam is very thin and I suspect he's got worms.  He's getting a good dose of panacure mixed in with canned and dry dog food and eats up everything from his bowl.  He was producing some pretty foul looking and smelling stool, but that's already improving.  It takes a while to get all the rural white trash flushed from a dog's system.

His ears are pretty much always at full alert.

Today I took him on his first hike with Maya.  It was chilly but a decent day.  We did five miles, at a record slow pace, mostly due to the fact that we had a new dog along.  Maya doesn't care who walks with us, she has her own agenda and she sticks to it.  We walk, she hunts.  Sam learned that she wasn't interested in playing with him while walking; walks are serious business, there were deer to stalk.  He wasn't the worst dog I've taken on a first walk, far from it.  He didn't really pull at all, although he did a lot of moving back and forth from side to side.  He learned that it's unwise to stop directly in front of me because I keep going.  He learned that, being leashed together, we all have to walk on the same side of stationary objects that have a significant vertical component, such as trees.

Sharing a sniff with Maya

So far, so good.  Sam is getting with the plan around here and the plan now includes him getting neutered on Friday.

I love this dog's tail.  It curls three different
directions, seemingly all at once.

Sleeping under my desk

The head position isn't ideal, but he likes to be close.