Introducing Tulsa

It was not much of a surprise, since she was such a good dog, but Mandy was adopted at PetSmart today. I’m happy that she found a new home so quickly, and I hope she continues to do as well at her new home as she did with us. Last week before we decided to foster Mandy, we were thinking about fostering Benny. Benny is a bloodhound mix, and he’s a little older than many of the dogs we rescue (6 or 7 years old I think), which means he’ll be a little harder to place. Benny is a large dog (70 lbs) so knowing how much my husband likes large dogs, I had planned to take Benny home last week. However, since Mandy needed a home environment more, I took her instead. Now that Mandy has found her forever home, I had planned to get Benny today. At least, I planned on that until I got to PetSmart and was told about Tulsa. I had met Tulsa at PetSmart last week, and thought she was a cute little dog. However, I didn’t consider fostering her for several reasons. First, she is a puppy (6 months old), second, she’s not house-trained, and third, she’s only 25 pounds. I am always afraid the Remi is going to play with a smaller dog and squish it. Especially with his propensity to begin playing with another dog by taking his huge paw and putting it on the other dog’s back, then shoving that dog down onto the ground. Since Remi outweighed Tulsa by 100+ pounds, I didn’t even consider bringing her home. But then they told me that they just found out that Tulsa is deaf. They knew I’ve wanted to foster a deaf dog since I first volunteered with Heartland. When I first started reading about dogs before we adopted Remi, I found out the huge numbers of dogs that are put to death each year simply for being deaf. I started doing more investigating, and what I found convinced me that deaf dogs are just as good as hearing dogs, and in some ways, they’re better! I joined some yahoo groups for deaf dogs, and began learning to how communicate with them and what special needs they had. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to foster a deaf dog. So, when they told me about Tulsa, I had to take her home. I am very excited at the opportunity to work with her, and so far, Remi and she are getting along just fine.

Update on Mandy

Mandy is doing very well at our house, and is becoming another model dog. She has not had any accidents in the house, no problems with Remi or George (the cat), and really no issues at all. We went on a hike at the Lewis & Clark hiking trail nearby, and she was perfectly well-behaved with all the other dogs she met, as well as all the strangers. I think she’ll be adopted pretty quickly.

Introducing Mandy

Both Angel and Coal went to their new homes today. So of course I brought home another foster! Mandy is a shepherd mix, and a very sweet dog. I had considered fostering her previously, but when she met Remi she was terrified of him. Still, she is stressed out in the kennel environment she is in, so we hope that by being in a normal household environment with just one other dog, she will be able to relax a little bit. I took Mandy and Remi out for a walk when I got home, and once she figured out that even though Remi is very big, he’s just a big baby, she was fine with him. Ever since I fostered Dolly, Remi thinks that playing with another dog requires a lot of growling, barking and wrestling. Obviously, when the dog is three times your weight and size, I can see why that would intimidate other dogs!