Some dogs are almost self-adopting. They "show well." They put themselves out there, are charming with strangers, make themselves irresistible. Those are the dogs that you can take to an adoption event and everyone wants them. I always say that I wish I could clone them and adopt those same dogs over and over. And then there are dogs like Lucky and Callie. They are happy where they are (in foster care), they don't know that they are in foster care, and they have no interest in meeting new people who might be their potential new home.
Callie is a lab, but she's not your typical happy-go-lucky lab who greets everyone with a thump of that solid tail, gives everyone a smile and a kiss, and will hop into any open vehicle in the hope that it will take them on an adventure. Callie loves me, she follows me everywhere, and wants to be glued to my left leg. I took her to meet some interested people today and she greeted them with a very ferocious and off-putting bark. Now, it doesn't take much to win Callie over, a slow introduction, a couple of treats, and she's literally eating out of your hand. But she's been very under-socialized and new people scare her initially, and she barks. That's not what most people are looking for in a lab, and it's cause for concern because she looks (and actually is) very sweet, and everyone thinks every lab is approachable and care-free. Callie is a nice dog and she will be a very good dog, but she's a bit of a project because of lack of socialization in her first year or so of life.
And then there's Lucky. She is also very attached to me, loves me dearly, and has no use for anyone else. Shepherds are often one-person dogs even when owned by a couple, but Lucky takes it a bit far. She still barks at Clay when he comes home as if he's a complete stranger. When we met a couple who were interested in her last week, she barked at them. She made friends quickly, with the woman at least, but the bark was enough to put them off. Lucky is still being weird about food too. I thought we had made a breakthrough when she started eating dog food, but that only lasted a couple of days. She's been back on her hunger strike for three days now.
I'm going out of town on Wednesday. I can board Callie where I board Max, if necessary, I think she'll do all right, but I really don't know what to do about Lucky. I can't leave her with the house sitter and I'm afraid that she would freak out in a boarding kennel and hurt herself trying to escape. She needs to be in a home with someone who understands her special weird shepherd ways. I considered her a flight risk around here for the first couple of weeks until she finally bonded with me. She was always trying to push through a door, and when she was out she always seemed to be looking for a way out. She was strictly leash walk only for quite a while, but now she's entirely off-leash and never out of my sight.
Both these girls are pretty easy fosters (except for Lucky's hunger strike), and they may take a while to find the right adopter. That's fine, I can hold on to them as long as it takes, but I'm up against the wall with needing to leave town and finding even a temporary appropriate placement for them.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment