honestly..i am so predictable...i will always try to do the right thing even if i don't want to.
Carol · Oct 27, 2011
so i hike on out to chilliwack to pick up our three new little guys (saints welcomes: may, bruiser, and snickers ...now known as nicky cuz we already have a snickers...at least for a little while more..) and i am pretty pleased with them all. may has some skin, eye, mouth problems but is a cheerful and happy girl and she is a senior shitz.... bruiser has ear, eye, mouth problems, a not so great tumour on his butt and probably cardiac issues..and while he is not exactly of the sunny personality persuation..he is most definitely a nice little guy..maybe a senior cocker/schaunzer cross? and nicky is just too funny...mr little busy butt and already my bestest little lap buddy with mouth, eye and ear issues plus his skin might be a tad yeasty for some reason....and he is a shitz/maybe terrier cross?
anyway..so i am driving home feeling all sunny and happy that all three are going to fit in absolutely fine. when i was about halfway home, the phone rang..i should have remembered it is illegal to answer your phone when you are driving.
low and behold it was chilliwack animal control...trina said...so what are you up to? and i said i was just leaving chilliwack after picking up three new dogs. she said she felt bad for calling but she was looking at a dog in the shelter and trying to decide what to do..he was emaciated, old, deaf, with cataracts and....
he was a chow.
my inside voice said "nuke him." (don't even bother being horrified that i would think this...the dog is a CHOW! and anyone who works in rescue, in shelters, in vet clinics, in kennels, in groomers..KNOWS that chows on the whole (but not always)...are major pain in the butts.)
SHIT! if it was a collie or a lab or a shepherd, i could have easily said no, we are too full..totally guilt free. but a freaking chow adds my personal breed bias into the mix...now i am saying no because he is a dick head breed and that isn't very nice of me.
so my outside voice said..ok..i will come and look at him after i drop these new guys off at home. sooooo...i finish the drive home, drop off the sweet guys and turn right around to go meet the dick. i am hoping beyond hope he is a cross breed cuz i can ignore the chow part of mixes...almost all fuzzy rural strays have chow in them somewhere so i just choose to see the other collie, lab or shepherd half cuz then you have a 50% chance of them not being a dick head.
anyway when i finally get back to chilliwack..sure as shit..he is a fullblood chow...and he is unneutered and i watched him mark the walls on his kennel like 20 times in less than 5 minutes. oh please...big surprize...an old dominate and arrogant chow? we all treated him with kid gloves...he wasn't too keen to let me look in his mouth so we waited for him to pant on his own so i could peek in with him unaware and see why his chest was so wet, matted and stinking. great caution was used to collar and leash him and lift him into my van...all of us knew not to piss off a chow cuz pissed off chows bite back.
he lifted his leg and pissed in the van on the way home so many times that the van smells like a skid row alley. i took him straight into the shop and stuck him in the shop pen cuz i am not even going to start trying to figure out if he likes dogs and cats and where to put him until his teeth are fixed and he is neutered...plus the poor old fart is a skeleton under all of that hair so he needs to be fed without a bunch of competition around him.
now he needs a name..i am thinking of either Ed for Eduardo (so i can call him Edweirdo when he is being a weird ass chow) or Howard (after Howard the Duck so when he is bad i can call him Howard the Dick.)
what do you guys think?
anyway..i am pretty sure that today because i didn't want to be biased.... we are probably welcoming the King of Dicks....but i don't know for sure yet..he might be ok...i just don't feel too overly hopeful about this today....chows are special dogs.
I have a rescued half-Chow/half-lab female who can be so exactly like this new SAINT - she is as sweet as can be when she wants to, which is most of the time, but boy, can she be a nasty little snot when she's in a mood! She was abused/neglected before she came to us, and she took a long time to come around, but now she gives the best hugs and wants to hold your hand when you're sitting on the sofa with her. That being said, I also fostered a full-blood female Chow puppy who turned into a very defensive, sometimes not very nice adult dog - she's great with her family, but not so good with others.
If I may be so bold as to weigh in on the name game from thousands of miles and a country away, I like King - King Richard would allow for King when he's good and Dick when he's being just that!
Carol, you have a good heart to overlook the breed and look at the dog - maybe with a bit of groceries, a no longer sore mouth, a place where he feels secure,and without the parts that make him want to mark EVERYTHING, he'll turn out to be a great dog!