Both Grace and Pete were something of a
Cinderella story. Grace had been returned multiple times by multiple owners to
the Humane Society of Columbus, Georgia due to her energy level and aversion to
dominant male dogs. She is a forty pound, tan and white, Shepherd mix. I am
certain she is mixed with Jack Russell Terrier; she is very bouncy. She had
been at the shelter longer than any other animal there. She was sweet,
affectionate, athletic and beautiful. She would be the perfect addition to our
home and three cats. House breaking her wasn’t overly difficult, but trying to
harness her energy was a lesson in patience. Letting her out of the house
without a leash surely meant chasing her for thirty minutes before tricking her
into the car with promises of a car ride. Grace fit right into our family, and
Jake took a liking to her right away. They were inseparable. Grace could run
for miles and play for hours. She was a social butterfly at the local dog park
and learned tricks instantaneously. She was well-mannered and brought a
happiness to our life that we hadn’t realized was missing. She was funny and
she held us accountable. I gifted her with a stuffed wombat I was given during
my work in Australia. We named him Wally and he has managed to survive to this
day. Grace never begged for food, but she always knew just where to sit and lay
to catch carelessly misdirected table scraps. Grace couldn’t outmuscle any dog,
but she was always the fastest. She especially loved sprinting figure eights in
the large sand pit in our community back yard.
Grace never stopped smiling and she was
pretty decent at fetch in the beginning. She could curl up so tiny during naps
that she would like a deer fawn, except with what we called cow spots. How at
least two different families could have returned her was beyond us. Grace was a
blessing and she was a constant reminder to not take things so seriously. She
also has made a great running partner. Grace has a six foot vertical, so our
pathetic four foot walls in the backyard cannot contain her. Before we realized
she could conquer them, I came home one day to find only Pete in the backyard.
A frantic search through the neighborhood found her playing in a different
backyard with a new dog. Since then, we’ve unfortunately had to devise schemes
to keep her in our territory. We’ve tied her out with a collar and she’s
managed to slip out of it. We’ve tied her out in a running harness and somehow
she’s managed to wriggle out of that too. Our new neighbors actually called
Animal Control after she Houdini’ed out of her harness and jumped the fence to
play with their dogs (we probably aren’t going to be having any barbecues with
these new neighbors). She’s also jumped a different wall to use a different
neighbor’s backyard as a bathroom. Personally, I wish I could have taught her
that. Hilarious. This particular neighbor also has a dog and his “messes” have
not been cleaned up in months. Their back yard is completely neglected and
their Christmas decorations are left up year-round. Enough said. We have
isolated her in the house and now she seems to have separation anxiety when she’s
away from Pete. This has led to one or two accidents. Today I tried tightening
her harness so her and Pete could be together outside. Hopefully this works.
Otherwise, a large, tall kennel is in order.
Pete, on the other hand, was a mess. Chris
decided we needed a “real man’s dog” once we moved to Texas. A casual shopping
trip to a local retail store first introduced us to Pete who was being featured
at an off-site adoption event. He was also a Shepherd mix like Grace, only a
lot bigger. He was the only dog laying in the kiddie pool, all the other dogs
were using them to drink out of. Pete had scars all over his body, no fur left
on the end of his tail, huge swollen paws that bled easily, and little to no
training. See, Pete had been a stray before Animal Control picked him up and
took him to the shelter. An adult stray, male German Shepherd mix with no
training and maybe no experience living inside a house. Great. About a week
after we decided to introduce Pete to our family, Chris left for the field for
a week. Now I’m alone with this adult stray, male German Shepherd mix with no
training and maybe no experience living inside a house. Great. There were
definitely nights I called Chris crying telling him we had to take Pete back.
Never in my life have I seen an animal go to the bathroom that many times in a
thirty minute timeframe. Needless to say, we have invested in a lot of pet
cleaning products, and gotten rid of most of the rugs in the house.
Now, I can’t imagine my life without Pete.
He seems to know he was saved and seems to be thankful. He will not stop
licking our faces, he loves to cuddle and he thinks he’s a lap dog. Oh, and Pete
weighs 90 pounds. Pete will play fetch for hours on end and still loves to
lounge in his kiddy pool. We still have a long way to go in training him. He
still hasn’t completely grasped the idea of holding it until we come home. Or,
more likely, he has separation anxiety. He also likes to walk us instead of the
other way around. I’m also working with him on that, but it’s hard to control a
rhino on a mission. Regardless, Pete is a part of the family and now him and
Grace are inseparable.
Pete has also posed problems of his own in
keeping safe and secure during the day. He absolutely cannot be left inside
since he has not been fully house trained yet. I don’t like leaving him outside
either because of the heat, but it seems to be the only way. We fill his pool, leave
out a lot of fresh water, and he has his shade spots too. He likes finding
rocks and barking at them. I’m sure we’ll get complaints from our new
neighbors.
As dysfunctional as they sometimes are,
they are family. Grace stares at reflections and shadows on walls for hours.
Pete barks at rocks all day. These are our babies and maybe, just maybe, we’ll
miss all of this one day.
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