Miles and hours

It was one of those days where I put in a lot of miles and a lot of hours, but still have the same number of dogs this evening. And yet I'm not discouraged, it was a good day and a good effort, which may yet prove to be productive. Even if no adoption results from today's efforts, it provided some new and good experiences for the dogs involved that may help them get adopted somewhere down the road.

Someone was seriously interested in Journey and they would be great for him: two other dogs, one human works from home, very large, very well fenced yard, experience with shy dogs, and I learned today that they use a vet who does home visits, even better. So I loaded up Journey and we headed over towards Richmond to meet these folks. 

I knew this would be traumatic for Journey. He hasn't left our yard since he got here. He's finally "homed" here and he goes from the house to Daneland in the morning and makes the reverse trip in the evening. He's a creature of habit and he's gotten comfortable with it. He is uncomfortable with any variations from the routine. Just getting him into the van was very difficult and literally scared the crap out of him. However, he rode nicely and he was better than I anticipated when we arrived. He liked their other dogs, of course, and they seemed fine with him. He even allowed the humans to approach him and pet him, although he didn't initiate contact himself. I put a long leash line on him and turned him loose in their big back yard. We spent a fair amount of time there, enough so they could get a clear picture of what he was like and how much of a project he will be.

I brought him back home to give them a few days to mull it over. That's fine, it needs to be a well-considered, thought out, and reasoned decision if they decide to adopt him. They are great people and could certainly provide him with a great home. Even if they decide against it, it was a good experience for him to go somewhere else and meet new people. 

When I got home with Journey, I got him back to his friends out in Daneland and then loaded up the two male Danes, Winston and Chase. We headed over to Green Dogs to meet some people and to meet a cat. They were fine meeting the people. They saved their worst behavior for me, grabbing my wrist and jumping up on me. I'm discouraging that style of play but I'm afraid that's the way they were raised so it may take a while to stop it. It was obvious that they had never met a cat. Chase looked at the cat and then backed away. Winston approached the cat but was utterly clueless about what it was. It was not a prey drive response at least and that is good. They are probably teachable about cats. 

Although there's nothing really tangible or certain to show for the day, it was time well spent.