After Sam died, I went to bed and didn't get up for almost a week. The first few days, I couldn't even drink water without gagging. I think it was the third day that I brought my laptop to bed and started compulsively looking at rescue sites. I definitely wasn't looking for a new dog - I was just doing something to take my mind off of Sam, and perusing rescue sites was what I did on a very regular (...couple of times a day...) basis. So I was on petfinder, the lange foundation site, brindleweb, and the TDBCR site. After looking at the border collie site I decided that I had to foster a dog in the summer, or I wasn't going to be able to be at home like I had planned. Everything to do with home was painful - there was no Sam snuggled next to me in bed, no Sam dancing around barking for his dinner, no Sam standing next to me bugeyed telling me he needed to go for a walk NOW. So I emailed TDBCR with my foster application, and tried to think about helping another rescue dog instead of dwelling on my constant thought about Sam. It was at least something to stop me crying.
A couple of weeks later I'd had an interview and the plan was that I'd finish finals, visit my grandma in LA, then come back and foster a border collie. I was secretly hoping that my parents would fall in love with the foster dog (I knew I would, that was guaranteed) and would want to keep it. I don't exactly know what I was thinking with the new dog plan. After high school I'd left home to go live in residence at university, and I'd left Sam (and Zoe, obviously) at home with my parents. It was a pretty good arrangement, since Sam was well behaved for my parents, but was always over the top happy to see me when I came home every few weekends. I don't know how happy Sam was - my parents always said he seemed confused the the next few days after I visited, and would sleep on my bed alone until he realized I wasn't coming back. I think I was foolishly thinking that my parents would fall in love with the foster dog, and we'd continue on like we had before. The dog would be theirs when I was living at school, and mine when I came home to visit since I would have worked with it all summer. What I really wanted was to just have Sam back...I was also trying not to think about the fact that a border collie was almost guaranteed to be way too much dog for my parents, who've never really had to train a dog. I did all of Sam's training, and even though I thought he was pretty good, my mom always walked him with a halti so that he wouldn't pull her over. Zoe should have had way more training but since she was so small her snarly barking at other dogs was always laughed at by people. But leave my parents with a crazy, hyped up border collie looking for a job? Definitely not going to happen.
After finals my mom and I went to LA for one of our regular visits to see my grandma. Sometime after realizing that failing border collie fostering 101 was not going to happen, and I think it may have been on the flight to LA, I'd come to the decision that I was going to go to the Lange Foundation, find the perfect dog, bring it home as a temporary "foster", and we'd end up keeping it. I've always been a very stubborn person...and once I make up my mind..well let's just say you're never going to be able to say anything that will change it.
Our flight got in to LA late Monday night. First thing Tuesday morning I told my mom I was going to walk dogs at Lange, and that she might as well stay home and rest...all part of the plan, of course. It had been 3 months since Sam had died, but it was still hard not to cry when everyone at the shelter told me how sorry they were. I had been on the Lange website, and had seen only one dog that looked promising. How stupid was I to be deciding about dogs by their picture and 2 sentences about them? VERY VERY STUPID! I have definitely learned my lesson. I guess since it worked out so well with Sam, who I basically chose because he was the right size and seemed like a nice dog, I thought it would work again. For one thing, these dogs are in a shelter and not in foster homes - who knows what they're like in a home environment. Also, Sam was seven - a seven yr old dog is pretty much who he is. A nine month old dog, which is the age of the dog that looked promising, and also the age that Crazy was, is definitely NOT who she is going to be...everything can change between adolescence and adulthood. It frustrates me to no end knowing how stupid I was. Did I have any kind of temperament test in mind? no. Did I have a personality in mind? no. Did I have any ideas about how to manage any kind of aggression? no. The only encounters I'd had with aggressive dogs was with Zoe's dog aggression and territorial aggression. We hired the only trainer we knew of, who is very very popular where I live, and who is known for being ok for showring obedience...but useless for anything else. She told us that Zoe had claimed the yard as her own, so we should no longer let anyone enter our house through the yard. Yup, that was about the only advice we got.
Soo back to me walking around the shelter. The dog I'd seen online, Jonah, was a red and white Aussie mix. He seemed like a nice dog, but they told me that he had it in for cats. So..that ruled out Jonah, in my books. Peppy gave me scars on my arms from when Sam came home, and all Sam ever did was try to sniff Peppy's butt ever so nicely. I'd seen another cute picture on the website, but for some reason I got the impression that the dog, called "Shawnie", had really short legs like a corgi mix. I don't know why, but I wanted another medium sized dog, and she seemed too small. When I saw her in the shelter though...I pretty much fell in love with her right then.
With Sam it had been more of a ...gradual love. He was annoying in the shelter, super barky all the time. When I walked him he'd grab the leash and yank it, or try to slip his collar and run away. He wasn't interested in attention - he just wanted out of his cage.
Shawnie, though, was adorable. When I walked by her cage she started bouncing about four feet straight up, over and over. She definitely didn't have short legs! In fact her legs were super long, and she was built like a whippet, but a tiny bit stockier. I went in and sat with her and she crawled into my lap. Half an hour later she was in the back of the car and I was driving back to my grandma's house.
Abby, and she was soon renamed, had been in three different homes already, in 6 months. She was transferred to Lange from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, in Utah, when she was about 4 months old, with her two brothers. Who knows if this is really true, but the problem in the first home was that they realized they just didn't have time for a dog, and she was digging up their yard, the 2nd home was a couple and Abby was just too terrified of the man, and the 3rd home had kids, and Abby growled at one of them when she had a bone. At the time I thought - ok, these aren't major problems.
Hiding from the big scary world.
What do I think now? Well, she's finally settled down slightly, but in normal dog terms Abby is a neurotic ball of energy. Without something to do, she will go outside and dig - not just small holes, but dig as deep as she possibly can. But this is probably the least of the problems. The fact that she was terrified of men? She's still terrified, of most strangers. But instead of running away like she used to, she'll tell them to back off as soon as they make a wrong move..by snarling and snapping. Growling at kids? She is allowed nowhere near kids, after snapping once at a girl who was petting her, and then lunging at a group of kids ont the beach. Add to that the fact that she is a complete control freak, can be bossy with dogs and with people, is a one person dog, is instantly tuned into anything fast moving....well let's just say she's no Sam. Let's also say that I haven't yet met a border collie that is any crazier than my very own Nut.
But...I didn't know any of these things. I thought I had a sweet shy dog in the back of the car who would be easily 'turned around' once she was in a loving home. I thought all she needed was some stability, and she would soon be a "normal" social dog like Sam. The convincing the parents part was relatively easy this time, since we all missed Sam so much, and since Abby's deer look appealed so much to my mom. We flew Abby home with us, and that's when the NuttyMutt started to emerge...
I'm gonna getcha!
Gotcha!
Practicing "table" in our yard.
Being a student and having a dog at the same time definitely isn't for everyone, but it is so so good for me. I really use Abby as a de-stresser. She reminds me that there is more than just school in my life. Yes, I have become basically a recluse except for going for walks...but I like it that way! Sadly, I'd rather spend Friday night curled up on the couch watching a movie with Abby than out partying. I am glad that I had three years with no real responsibility so that I could find out what a normal university student's life is like. If I hadn't, I'd probably wish I could go out all the time and that I didn't have to take care of Abby. But this way I feel like I've been there, done that, and can now do what I really want to do - and it feels like such a privilege to get to go to school and have a dog at the same time!
Attack!!
This is by far the most common question I get asked when out with Abby. And I don't know for sure that people aren't actually inquiring about what species she is, becuase sometimes I wonder that myself. Actually I lied about it being the most common question..it's probably tied with "what happened to her tail" and "can't you get her to shut up?". Ok, no, people usually only think the shutting up part but don't actually ask (because I wouldn't hear them over the manic barking). So...what is Abby? Who knows. I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that she it a mutt and I will never know what she is. But it's still fun to guess! She's 29lbs and about 18" tall. The most common guesses are mixes involving Whippet, Jack Russell, Aussie, and Belgian Shepherd. However - I don't know about in Utah, but I've never heard of any stray Whippets around here, or of any roaming Belgian Malinois. There have been a couple of "Border Collie x Jack Russell" guesses, but for one thing that thought is so scary that I would rather not contemplate it, and also, the only thing Abby really has in common with a Border Collie is the intensity, as far as I can tell. Oh and there have been the guesses of Boxer and Pitbull...uh...suuure. Another common comment is "she looks like a Mexican beach dog!". I think that if we threw all the dog breeds together and let them reproduce indiscriminantly for years and years, the product would be billions of Abbys. Now that is a terrifying thought.
What do I think now? Well, she's finally settled down slightly, but in normal dog terms Abby is a neurotic ball of energy. Without something to do, she will go outside and dig - not just small holes, but dig as deep as she possibly can. But this is probably the least of the problems. The fact that she was terrified of men? She's still terrified, of most strangers. But instead of running away like she used to, she'll tell them to back off as soon as they make a wrong move..by snarling and snapping. Growling at kids? She is allowed nowhere near kids, after snapping once at a girl who was petting her, and then lunging at a group of kids ont the beach. Add to that the fact that she is a complete control freak, can be bossy with dogs and with people, is a one person dog, is instantly tuned into anything fast moving....well let's just say she's no Sam. Let's also say that I haven't yet met a border collie that is any crazier than my very own Nut.
There are a lot of things I wish I'd done with Abby last summer that I didn't know about and didn't do. I was convinced, the whole summer, that if I just took her everywhere and brought her to the dog park all the time, and did lots of obedience with her, she'd transform into a well adjusted dog. Giving her tons of exercise and bringing her everywhere with me was definitely a good thing (who knows what her brother is like, who is just as shy but is only taken out for a few 15 minute leash walks every day). I wish I had noticed that she didn't just "love other dogs" like I thought - she did love to play with *most* dogs, but she was usually either very very scared when she first met them, or very very pushy. When we saw people on leash walks, she always had her eye on them as they were passing by. On hikes, she'd go leaping off the trail if there was a group of people on the trail, or a biker, or a jogger. She would go racing in the opposite direction at the sound of a skateboard. At home, Peppy would chase her around the house constantly, so she was scared to leave my bedroom unless it was to go under the tv room desk or into her crate.
ver her initial fear of commands (at first she would roll over on her back if I spoke to her using anything but the highest pitch possible, or touched her body at all), she was and is incredibly responsive. I start to say the word "heel", and she's at my side looking up at me before it's even out of my mouth. Off leash, she never lets me out of her sight (unless she's chasing dogs...), and she would never dream of running away. The world is a big scary place, and she would have no idea what to do in it alone. When Sam ran away, and I would be freaking out about where he was, I would always picture him happily strolling down the street, tongue hanging out, ready to go home with whoever invited him. If I were to picture Abby as a stray...people would think she was some kind of mutant tailless coyote and she would definitely never let herself be caught.
e had to be on. Eventually she did go into kidney failure late at night, and we brought her to the emergency clinic to be euthanized. It was very sad, but in a different way than with Sam. Zoe was 13, and was sick for such a long time - she just got slower and slower, and we knew it was coming. Plus, losing Sam was almost a numbing experience for me. Nothing since then has felt as painful as when Sam died.
When I was nine I threatened to kill myself if I didn't have a dog by my 10th birthday - the result was Zoe, a 13 lb terrier mix, who made it very clear from day one that she was my mom's dog and my mom's dog only. She wouldn't go for walks with me, wouldn't play with me, and wouldn't even move from her spot by the window if my mom left the house. Being a terrier, however, she could be coerced to do just about anything for liver...but I dreamed of a dog (literally dreamed, it was recurring, and the dog was always called Sam) of a dog who would play fetch and follow me around and worship me, like Zoe worshipped my mom.
10 weeks old
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