It is not surprising that my first grandchild would be a huge deal, it may be surprising that my first grandchild is not a child though. Josh is very much like his mother when it comes to children, he is not really fond of them either. However, he did inherit my love and devotion to the animal kingdom.
As soon as Josh moved down here he started looking for a dog. He was not allowed to have one at his house in Wyoming and we already tried to bring Chupa down here to live but he was miserable. So Josh spent the first week here looking all over the internet at shelters for the perfect dog. One that would fit into our already large animal kingdom.
After the family left on Friday, Joshua and I headed out to do some shopping and I suggested we head to the shelter to see what they had. We had already determined that the Westside shelter housed more of the smaller dogs so that is where we went. Walking through the shelter was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. Your heart goes out to every animal there and if I could have I would have taken every one of them home. I believe it was in the second building we went in (there were 3) we saw this little red dog who was 3 years old. He was laying in his plastic bed and pretty much ignored us. When I called him over he got up and came to the gate and licked my hand. It was pretty much love at first sight for both Josh and I. But, we wanted to look some more, the last building had a beautiful spaniel mix but it was a female and we both agreed Kali would do better with a male than a female.
We went to let the staff know we were interested in seeing the first dog who they had listed as Sancho. Before they would take him out of the pen the staff made sure that we had no little children at home because he did not like small kids. My comment was "Wow, neither do we!" We took the dog outside to spend some time with him and within 2 minutes we knew this was the dog we wanted to take home. He was so sweet and a definite lover. He climbed in your lap and just wanted to be loved. Unfortunately, he was not altered so he had to stay at the shelter until Monday when he would have his surgery.
Saturday, we took Tau, Kali and Auntie Phyllis to meet the newest member of the family. The dogs had to meet through a fence in case they did not like each other but they all seemed to be just fine with each other. After a quick Reiki session with Auntie Phyllis to determine any special needs we had to let him go back. It was heartbreaking to leave him there again and you see in his little eyes he was concerned that maybe we did not want him after all. We promised to be back as fast as we could to take him home.
Josh spent the next few days trying to decide on a name for him. Again, like his mother it has to be a name with some meaning. He searched and talked to his friends to come up with the perfect name. He decided on the name Dorian after his favorite book; but I just referred to him as Shanky, until he got home. Now his is referred to as "grandbaby".
Monday, we went to the shelter to take him home and introduce him to his Auntie Tau and Auntie Kali. Already having gone through the dog introduction training before I knew what to do, but since he just had surgery I did not want it to be stressful, so we put him in the backyard and took Tau out first since he is the calmer one. Things went great, except Tau does not like to have his butt sniffed. We removed Tau and put Kali in and she did great. She had one more minion under her. We put both in and things could not have been better. During the night we had one issue and that was over food between him and Kali. But, it was broken up by me and they did fine. Kali even got onto Tau for growling at him. I explained to Josh the rules of the pack and that Kali was the alpha and to avoid fights we leave it that way and let them work out the issues. Right now he is being quarantined from Tau & Kali because he has kennel cough and is still recovering from his surgery. But, by the weekend they will be able to be together and get to know one another better.
After the family left on Friday, Joshua and I headed out to do some shopping and I suggested we head to the shelter to see what they had. We had already determined that the Westside shelter housed more of the smaller dogs so that is where we went. Walking through the shelter was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. Your heart goes out to every animal there and if I could have I would have taken every one of them home. I believe it was in the second building we went in (there were 3) we saw this little red dog who was 3 years old. He was laying in his plastic bed and pretty much ignored us. When I called him over he got up and came to the gate and licked my hand. It was pretty much love at first sight for both Josh and I. But, we wanted to look some more, the last building had a beautiful spaniel mix but it was a female and we both agreed Kali would do better with a male than a female.
We went to let the staff know we were interested in seeing the first dog who they had listed as Sancho. Before they would take him out of the pen the staff made sure that we had no little children at home because he did not like small kids. My comment was "Wow, neither do we!" We took the dog outside to spend some time with him and within 2 minutes we knew this was the dog we wanted to take home. He was so sweet and a definite lover. He climbed in your lap and just wanted to be loved. Unfortunately, he was not altered so he had to stay at the shelter until Monday when he would have his surgery.
Saturday, we took Tau, Kali and Auntie Phyllis to meet the newest member of the family. The dogs had to meet through a fence in case they did not like each other but they all seemed to be just fine with each other. After a quick Reiki session with Auntie Phyllis to determine any special needs we had to let him go back. It was heartbreaking to leave him there again and you see in his little eyes he was concerned that maybe we did not want him after all. We promised to be back as fast as we could to take him home.
Josh spent the next few days trying to decide on a name for him. Again, like his mother it has to be a name with some meaning. He searched and talked to his friends to come up with the perfect name. He decided on the name Dorian after his favorite book; but I just referred to him as Shanky, until he got home. Now his is referred to as "grandbaby".
Monday, we went to the shelter to take him home and introduce him to his Auntie Tau and Auntie Kali. Already having gone through the dog introduction training before I knew what to do, but since he just had surgery I did not want it to be stressful, so we put him in the backyard and took Tau out first since he is the calmer one. Things went great, except Tau does not like to have his butt sniffed. We removed Tau and put Kali in and she did great. She had one more minion under her. We put both in and things could not have been better. During the night we had one issue and that was over food between him and Kali. But, it was broken up by me and they did fine. Kali even got onto Tau for growling at him. I explained to Josh the rules of the pack and that Kali was the alpha and to avoid fights we leave it that way and let them work out the issues. Right now he is being quarantined from Tau & Kali because he has kennel cough and is still recovering from his surgery. But, by the weekend they will be able to be together and get to know one another better.
