Behold, the Medium Dogster

[akirlu]

Kaylee on the office floor
Originally uploaded by halobrien

Not something you can say every day, but on Saturday, we saved a life. The blond cutie you see in the picture, Kaylee, was scheduled to be euthanized on Halloween for having taken up a kennel too long at the shelter. We decided we were willing to foster one of the dogs that Saving Great Animals was working to pull out of the Tri-Cities shelter in Pasco before their time was up.

So on Saturday we did some errands, including buying a new collar, a bully stick and some freeze-dried liver treats as incentives, then went up to Beacon Hill to collect a second-hand kennel found on Craigslist ($25 instead of $150+ -- yay), and then back down to SeaTac to collect a dog.

Kaylee wasn't that interested in us when we met her at the pet boarding kennel where the escapees were brought after their trip from Eastern Washington. She was mostly interested in exploring her expanded surroundings and policing up every crumb of food she could find on the kennel floor. But after a bit of fumbling with a borrowed harness to supplement the too loose collar we brought, we managed to take her out for a walk around the neighborhood.

At first her leash manners were awful -- she insisted on dragging and pulling out front, and wanting her nose to the ground at absolutely all times -- and the borrowed harness wasn't helping, so we finally took it off and just walked her with the collar pulled up high. Once we learned not to let her eel forward into her collar and choke herself trying to sniff the ground, she got a good deal better. Back at the kennels we collected her paperwork and tags, assured Perrin that we were willing to take her, and moved on to the next hurdle -- loading a new dog up in the car.

I had hoped we could load her straight into the new kennel, but that had proved slightly too big for the back seat of the Volvo -- or rather, slightly too big to get through the door -- so it was disassembled in the trunk, and Kaylee had to be loaded directly into the back seat. Now, lots of dogs are fine loose in the car, but some are frightened of cars, some get carsick, and some are just plain too kinetic to be loose in the cab. Luckily, Kaylee was completely game -- she hopped right into the back seat without having to be bribed, and handled the car ride like an angel. She was even willing to sit or lie down, something it took Sarah years to learn.

So a slightly rough beginning, but it's been clear sailing since. Even over the course of a day, Kaylee's been improving in every way. She's learned to sit on cue pretty reliably -- very reliably when there's a treat to be had -- and we're working on getting a sit at the door before she's allowed out, and at mealtimes before she gets her food.

She's a very pliant, submissive dog, too. She lets me take away her food, or her chew, without a murmur. She generally responds right away to a verbal correction, and she's got a pretty good recall when she's off leash in the yard or, as we found out yesterday, at the dog park. I'm pretty sure she's part sight hound of some sort, just by her looks, and she's got a pretty solid prey drive going if something is running, so we will be working on establishing and maintaining an appropriate relationship with the cats, but on the whole, I am very hopeful of teaching her to be a very well mannered dog.

She is, for now, a foster -- we were neither of us wanting to commit to a lifelong relationship with a new dog already -- but I suspect there's some risk that we will bond strongly enough that we'll want to keep her. Either way, in the meantime she's getting regular meals and has a warm place to sleep, plus toys and treats and human attention, and that surely beats being tossed in a dumpster.

Comments

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Agreed: all three dogs Ann and I brought into this house were from some kind of rescue.