Pretty girl, smart girl, good girl

This is Hannah.  I picked her up from the Orange County shelter on Friday afternoon.  Instead of coming straight home, I took her out with me on my almost daily walk.  We walked for just less than an hour around Pleasant Grove, partly on the trails and partly on the road and baseball fields.

Hannah is an impressive girl.  She's about 5.5 years old and she's obviously had some pretty good training.  I took her out to a fenced area at the shelter to meet her before we came home.  Even out there she listened to me and responded to "sit," "down," and "stay."  I was very impressed, particularly in light of the environment and the fact that she didn't know me from Adam. 

I was told that she was a little wary of strangers, and she is, but not overly so from what I saw.  She let me collar her, leash her, and walk her.  She listened to me, walked nicely on the leash, and when I let her off leash in the fenced baseball field she stuck nearby and then showed me the gate we had come in.  She's a smart one; I would bet that nothing gets by her.  She reminds me of my late Gypsy that way.  She's a serious dog.  She's not happy, smiley, goofy.  Again, like Gypsy, she strikes me as a dog with a purpose, a job, a duty she takes seriously.

She's a beautiful red and black and appears to have been well cared for.  She's got AKC papers (I hate that organization), and doesn't seem to have been spayed, but it doesn't appear that she's been bred either.  The original owners had her microchipped as well.  The story I heard is that they moved to Florida and gave her up to woman X about two weeks ago.  The owners obviously made a very poor decision because woman X dumped her at a shelter after having her only a week.  Fortunately, it was a good shelter but I doubt that it mattered to the dumper. 

The story given by the dog dumper was that she didn't have time for the dog.  That, like "allergies," is a cover story, a lie.  Where the truth lies we will never know.  Apparently Hannah was good with the male dog in the dumper's home but not the female.  That comes as no surprise.  I'm sure she and Thora would not hit it off and I'm not even going to try that combination.  I may try her with Radley, Trooper, and Spartan after she's had a few days to settle in around here. 

Although she's wary of strangers, she's not aggressive or overly fearful.  Hannah is not going to be anyone's instant best friend.  The human/shepherd bond is one that the shepherds take very seriously, more so than most humans.  Earn their trust, love, and commitment, and they will be with you to the end, but they don't give that level of trust to anyone and everyone right from the start.  It's a bond that forms and strengthens over time.  The dog is never the one to break that bond and they are understandably distraught when their human does so.  It's nothing short of amazing that they can and will form that bond again, but it doesn't happen overnight, or even in the first week with some dogs.  But when a person comes along who is willing to make the commitment and put in a little bit of effort, it's "till death we do part" from the shepherd's perspective and they will keep their end of the bargain.