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

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Good for you both - a true mitzvah! Glad she's fairly well mannered.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Ann's and my terrier, Baldrick, was scooped from the road after he'd been hit by a passing car. Never found out his origins.

I scattered their ashes together in Yorkshire.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Go you.

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

Bless you both.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

<3

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

A mitzvah indeed. And I'm pleased to say that Kaylee's manners seem to improve very quickly. It helps that she's also dog-friendly, people-friendly, and very, very food-motivated. The food-motivated part is a great help in positive behavioral shaping.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It's nice that Ann and Baldrick are together in Yorkshire. We still have Sarah's remains in her little pine box. We'll take them to the beach (or several beaches) eventually, because she was always a salty dog at heart.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thank you. To be fair, having a dog around is a blessing in itself, so fostering/rescuing is at least a self-rewarding behavior.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

That can help a lot - my hairdresser got a Staffy puppy who is somewhat scatterbrained and impulsive, which she tended to blame on the breed. Then she got another Staffy a few months later who's very food-oriented and the difference in ease of training was noticeable.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Kaylee looks a fun dog. I'm sure you'll be very happy together. It's never the same as your previous dog, but hopefully as good in a different way.

Guess I better work out when to start dog-hunting myself. After Easter would make most sense (since I have Novacon this month, a week in Yorkshire in February, Microcon and Corflu in March, then Eastercon in early April). My kid brother's girlfriend volunteers in a rescue centre, which might help.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

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

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Look at those ears! She's a lucky girl.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, her ears are something else. You almost have to think she's part bat.

[boxofdelights]

She's lovely. Do you know how old she is? I'm glad you saved her life.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

She's beautiful, and very lucky to have you for a foster family.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Coincidenally, my local Freagle (the UK wing of Freecycle, till the recent split) is currently looking for a home for a 15 month-old Staffordshire terrier, but it's the wrong point of the year, and probably way too big a dog to take on. Like Harry Callahan said, a man's got to know his own limitations.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

She's beautiful.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Good luck, and have fun!

--Danny, who currently has 8 foster cats in his house.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Tough to think of such a nice dog being homeless.

[ladyjestocost.livejournal.com]

She looks like a nice dog - and she's very luck to have you guys as a foster family. Truly, a good deed.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Like her breed heritage, her age is a matter of some dispute. The shelter guessed she was a year old in July, but she seems to have grown into her head since then, and the rescue was putting her age at closer to nine months. She's clearly quite young -- early adolescent somewhere -- and possibly still growing some.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Tough to think of such a nice dog going unwanted for three months in the shelter, too. It's a tough old world, alas, and moreso in the eastern part of the state.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

She's very sweet. it looks like it may be good luck all around.

[ceemage.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! And becoming a "failed fosterer" (i.e. ending up adopting your charges) is an occupational hazard of being a dog fosterer, of course.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

We talked and talked about fostering after our dog and two cats died, but in the end I decided it would be too hard to have them for awhile and let them go again. So we adopted. But I thoroughly approve of your fostering, that is just super. I hope we do it someday ourselves.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Good for you guys!

If you want some socialisation time, Tyson is pretty good with other dogs. We're taking it easy with the young one for now but Tyson is settling into the big brother routine with her too.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't fix the timing, so that's probably that, but Staffies have a pretty broad size range, and IMO temperament and energy level are probably more crucial than size per se. Chances are a year-and-a-half old Staffie will need a lot of exercise to keep calm the rest of the time, while, say, a retired greyhound -- very possibly a significantly larger dog, certainly taller and leggier -- is going to be happy with two 15-minute excursions per day, and lounging around the house the rest of the time.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, it's quite possible this foster will turn into an adoption by and by -- as long as Kaylee can learn to be trustworthy with the cats, she's showing every sign of shaping into an entirely lovely dog. On the other hand, since she's dog-friendly overall, even if we keep her it doesn't preclude other fosters, by and by. And since it makes me just heartsick that perfectly fine dogs are killed every day for no worse crime than having gone unadopted too long, I expect we'll do more fosters in the fullness of time, either way.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

We would love to introduce Kaylee to Tyson some time when that works for you guys. I think they could probably be great pals, especially if Tyson likes to play chase at all.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Good point: Ann was considering a greyhound at one point, and they do turn up at the local branch of Dogs Trust.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

In these parts there seem to be several rescues that specialize in retired racing dogs. I met a fellow who had two, and from what he was saying they need surprisingly little exercise to be happy and healthy. They do need some time to learn to be house dogs -- usually the rescues foster for this -- and one needs to be aware of the fact that because they've been kenneled much of their lives, they often love sprawling once they get the space, so allowing a greyhound to sleep on the bed would probably be asking to be displaced.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I'll speak to the boss.

And yes, Tyson plays chase. Oh dear ghods how does he like to play chase.

My job at the weekend is to fence off more of the garden so we can let the grass recover from "chase".

Marymoor is probably the best bet, then there's lots of room for insanity.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

The dogs used to sleep on the floor at the bottom of our bed, but soon as Ann or I left for work (like, when Ann was on a late duty and I was off into B'ham, or when she was on an early shift and had somehow been persuaded to grab a cab), the remaining occupant of the bed would soon find themselves with a couple of companions. We were very much a pack, with the usual hierarchy (though I never worked out who was at the top).

I'll take your advice about sprawling dogs, though. One of the last major investments Ann and I made was an Italian leather three-piece suite (rrp circa $4000, down to around half that) and I'd rather the couch didn't turn into a dog basket whenever my back was turned. (Wasn't such a problem when we had a succession of secondhand couches.)