What a busy day! Janet and I picked up Odie this morning. Odie is what is called an owner surrender in animal rescue circles. He wasn't running stray or lost. His owner just didn't want him anymore. I can never understand why so many people just turn their backs on their pets like this. We see cases like this again and again. Often someone has lost their job, is involved in a messy divorce, or is moving to another part of the country. There is always a reason for dumping the dog, but these reasons never make a lot of sense to me. I think when times are tough is exactly when you'd need a dog the most. Dogs never criticize when you get yourself into a mess. They're just as loyal when you screw up as when you are doing great. If things were going poorly for me, I'd never want to give up my dogs. I'd eat dog food myself before I'd abandon a dog.Our job this morning was to take Odie from his former owner and deliver him to the Dalmatian Rescue vet. The vet was closed for lunch when we picked him up however, so we brought the dog over to our house for a while. Odie, the new guy, seemed much more well adjusted than our own dogs. Territorial Dot barked at Odie and timid Dash was scared of the big guy's size. To calm the waters, we took all the dogs on a walk together. Cesar Millan says the best way to introduce dogs to each other is to take them on a walk together. This tactic has certainly proved to be true in our own experience. At the end of the walk, all three dogs were getting along fine.
President's Day certainly wasn't much of a holiday. In theory, Janet got the day off, but she had to go back to work anyway after we took Odie to the vet. I never get holidays, or maybe everyday is a holiday. I can never decide. I did have plenty of work to do today however. Once Odie was safely at the vet, I went back to the business of writing articles and updating websites. Even with all the other activities going on today, I seemed to get as much done as I usually do.
Tomorrow, Dash goes back to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot. Our mail carrier will start delivering the mail again and hopefully it won't rain. I'm actually looking forward to a boring, uneventful day.
Odie is today's Dalmatian of the Day | Watch of the Day |
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Odie is beautiful.
ReplyDeletePoor Odie! The only difference in Pres Day here was that we didn't get mail.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely dog. As someone whose dogs are "here for life" (even when occasionally it turns out that I'm not all that fond of or bonded with a particular dog), I don't get the mindset that can just let a dog go. But maybe I just have never had the misfortune to be in circumstances where I had to make that hard choice. At least those who release their dogs to rescues are doing better by them than putting them in kill shelters or just "taking them for a ride" and dropping them off in rural areas under the mistaken impression that "some friendly farmer will take them in." Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAlso...just discovered your blog and like it very much!