Museum front

Museum front
This is the future site of "The American Working Dog Museum" and its supporting coffee and gift shop, "Toby's Sit & Stay." We will eventually renovate the facade in keeping with historical preservation guidelines.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Super Duper Trooper!

Flashback: As my husband and I discussed our rapidly growing interest in animal therapy, we realized that if we (he wants to be registered eventually as well) want to be able to serve the greatest number and type of clients, we would have to have another therapy dog -- one who was in love with small children and had a higher energy level for physical therapy work (chasing a ball, etc.). I began my search for an adult dog to rescue, so he would already be settled into adulthood, and we wouldn't have to wait for him to become a year old. Petfinder.com became my constant companion, and I contacted many breeders to ask if they had an adult dog that they wanted to retire, or an adolescent that didn't quite live up to their show conformation expectations.

I found several dogs in our local shelter that I thought might work, and the shelter agreed to let me foster them for a couple of weeks to see if they would be suitable for therapy work. One was a wire haired bulldog mix, rather ugly, but with a sweet temperament. I asked my husband to visit the shelter with me to look at him, and Greg pronounced him too ugly to inspire warm feelings in therapy clients. I heard from the staff a couple of weeks later that they had taken him to a family gathering where he started nipping the small children, so we were glad we didn't take him home.

The next local dog was a West Highland Terrier ("Westie") who had been picked up as a stray along with another identical dog. He was nice enough, if a bit strong-willed, but he had a skin condition that I think might have been a flea allergy. Westies are prone to such things, and I just didn't want to take on a health problem that might affect how he looked (and felt) to clients.

The last local dog to come under scrutiny was a lovely little black and white Shih Tsu with a great temperament. I brought my whole family to see him, and my husband and one of the boys were immediately repulsed by his "bulging bug eyes." As much as I wanted to take him, I couldn't fight half the family over him, so he found a forever home elsewhere soon after.

We traveled to several shelters in our extended area to see other dogs that looked good online, but weren't what we wanted once we got there. One lovely Sheltie mix was just too shy for the job. Another American Eskimo was already adopted when we arrived. A Pomeranian didn't seem to take training very well. (He later found a home with a friend here, and has been a wonderful addition to her family.)

Breeders offered us some dogs, but they were either too expensive, too old, or too high of a health risk. Finally Greg and I decided that we should look for another Sheltie, since we had had good luck with Toby, and really liked the breed. We wanted one who wasn't quite as shy as Toby, so I started checking out the breed rescues in the Midwest for an adult who could handle therapy. We really wanted to find a rescue dog. We considered a four-year-old male named Twister, almost traveling to see him, but decided at the last minute that his ingrained habits of spinning in manic circles and urinating on the furniture just weren't going to work for us.

I contacted Linda Kotapish at the Sheltie Shack Rescue in Kansas, but she didn't have any adult dogs at the time that she thought were calm and outgoing enough for therapy. We had several phone and email conversations over the span of a few weeks, and got to know each other a bit as we discussed the problems I was having in finding the right dog. Then suddenly her rescue was blessed with a litter of sable Sheltie puppies. A backyard breeder she knows had had an oops! litter (born December 22) when she thought she was out of the business, and had decided to give them to the shelter rather than trying to find homes for them. The parents were distantly related, which might also have been a consideration. There was always the possibility of genetic issues cropping up.

Linda generally does not let first-time Sheltie Shack adopters take a puppy, and seldom families with children, either, but she said she felt good about us after talking with me, and wanted to offer us a puppy if we wanted to try "starting from scratch" with our second dog. Greg and I talked it over, pros and cons (potty training, unknown personality factors, neutering expenses, etc.), and finally decided to consider it. We got photos of the puppies almost right away, and it was hard not to fall in love with each and every one of them. We thought we wanted a female to neutralize male dominance issues, but the Sheltie people I talked to said that the females tend to be rather bossy, and that two males would probably get along better.

There were only two males in the litter, and one of them -- the one with a beautifully symmetrical face -- was already promised to a friend of the rescue. The remaining male had a face only a mother could love: lopsided mask with a huge amount of white on his face. We were disappointed, and thought maybe we would consider one of his better-marked sisters. Linda agreed we could have the pick of the litter, minus the reserved male, and we decided to go ahead and take one of them, no matter what. We narrowed it down to one of the females with the most outgoing personality, and the little lopsided boy. If we got the girl, she would be "Troika" in honor of our boys' Russian heritage, and the boy would be "Trooper" to celebrate our own service and honor that of our American servicemen. Whichever pup we took would, hopefully, be doing therapy in the VA hospital with us. (The pup's name had to start with "T" to fit in with the rest of our pets, a naming fluke that became a habit.)

We got word in the first week of February that the breeder wanted them out of her house at 7.5 weeks old, so we made plans to travel to Kansas on Valentine's Day weekend. We were invited to stay in Linda's home -- also her rescue HQ -- in the basement apartment of a lovely ranch house on the farm she and her husband share. We arrived on a Friday night, and got to play with the puppies for awhile before putting the kids to bed. We met all of the puppies, but then played with just the two we had decided to choose between. Troika was a little kangaroo, jumping straight up into the air and constantly starting play fights with Trooper. She paid more attention to our dog, Toby (the whole family had to go and get approved by Linda) than she did to people. She also had a domed head (it should be flat), which worried us not only for conformation, but for health reasons. (Her own forever family later reported that she had a few minor seizures as a young puppy, but who knows if the shape of her head had anything to do with it -- Shelties are prone to epilepsy.) She was a very beautiful puppy, but we were concerned about her energy level. We were afraid that Toby would not be able to put up with her harassment. He is a very calm and unassuming dog.

Trooper, on the other hand, was a little less lively, though plenty energetic in his own right. He jumped, but not as often, and was less of a nuisance for Toby. His face was still very white, but we could see the brown had started to close in on the white a bit, as we had learned it would as he grew older. Both pups weighed about four pounds, with Troika just a little heavier than Trooper. I was almost afraid to touch them, they were so small. (One of their sisters weighed only about 2.5 pounds, so we had the monsters of the litter at that point.) Linda put the two of them in a puppy playpen in the basement with us, and we decided to sleep on our decision.

The next morning we awoke to the sound of boys and puppies playing in the next room. We fed them, cleaned up the pen, had some breakfast, and got them out to play again. After awhile, we came to the decision that although Troika had the prettier face, Trooper was better suited to our family, and hopefully for therapy. If we were looking for a funny face that would bring a smile of amusement to therapy recipients, rather than an awed appreciation of the dog's beauty, he was definitely the dog for us. (We briefly considered taking both of them, but reason soon prevailed.)

Linda prepared the adoption paperwork, we paid the fee (more than an ARL, much less than a breeder), and she gave us a gift bag with a ball, tug rope, collar, leash, tag, puppy blanket, document bag, and some food. No AKC papers -- I'd have to apply for an ILP (alternate AKC listing) later. The adoption agreement mandated that he be neutered before he could reach sexual maturity, which we agreed to wholeheartedly. His litter was the perfect example of why dogs should be spayed and neutered. (His mother was eventually spayed before she could have any more "accidents.") All of our pets have been "fixed" as soon as they were old enough, or, in the case of Tinker, as soon as he came into our house.

The boys went outside to meet Linda's miniature horses (one got out, and we had to herd him back in), and we finally said fond goodbyes and started the trip home. Trooper was/is a great traveler, unlike Toby, who suffered from car sickness for the first year of his life. He had nary an accident in his kennel on the return trip, and was great about doing his business when we let him out in the grass. Several hours later we arrived home to start the next chapter of our great therapy puppy adventure: Potty Training.

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