Post by erins66 on Aug 22, 2011 17:57:23 GMT -5
I'm Erin, and I recognize a lot of names here ... some of you I recognize from PBF (where I post as babyreba), others I haven't seen online in a long time. Will be nice to catch up again.
I moved to Winter Park, Florida from Baltimore last year ... I work for a newspaper, I keep a sporadic dog-related blog, I like to be outside. I also like to garden and plant things and bake bread, but I'm finding both of those things to be surprisingly challenging in this humid climate.
I do have three dogs--two are pit bulls, one's a mutt. They're ridiculously important to me.
Doc is 8 or 9 years old, rescue dog pulled off a chain in some Alabama breeders yard when he was younger in some kind of neglect/cruelty case, landed in the doggy clink, Turtle Moon rescue spotted him, got him to a foster home and then he bounced from one unsuccessful placement to another until he finally landed in my lap when he was 4. Oddly, I followed his progress on pit bull message boards, and I jokingly told the guy who was fostering him that I was smitten and that I was going to adopt him. A case of be careful what you wish for ...
Doc was, to say the least, a neurotic, spastic mess when we got him. He seriously needed work to do, so I started training him in schutzhund. He really liked it, did great in tracking in particular and he has two tracking titles (TR 1 and TR 2) and his BH, but we never did get him to a SCH I. We failed in two comical but valiant attempts (once we failed obedience on a brutally hot and stressful day, the other time we failed protection when an overly eager Doc thought he should be guarding the bad guy instead of sticking with me, so we DQ), but he did manage to nab a WPBTCA novice champion award in 2009, which was cool and fun to do.
We moved to Florida and took a break, and this past winter, right after we started training again, we had him xrayed for an intestinal obstruction, and we discovered that he's got some pretty serious arthritis throughout his spine and hips, so he's retired now and we just let him fool around and be a big jerk, which is his specialty.
I also have my little prince, Tucker, who is my baby boy. He was raised by my old lady dog, Reba, who we lost three years ago this October.
Reba on the left, Tucker as a baby on the right.
Tucker used to be a therapy dog and he liked to go visit people in nursing homes. I got busy and let his last certification expire, so now he just gets to be a social butterfly wherever he can get someone to pay attention to him.
He's also a rescue ... he was one in a litter of 7 that was going to be put to sleep at BARCS animal shelter in Baltimore because they were pit bull mixes. I grabbed the whole litter because I was struck by how amazingly social and sweet they were. I took two to foster, and I got a couple of rescues to take the others. We adopted out his sister to a great home that I still keep in touch with, but we kept Tucker. Look at that face, how could we not?
Tucker now.
And I also have Button, who was another rescue dog that I took in as a tiny puppy with the intention of fostering him until he was healthy enough to go to a permanent home. We discovered very early on, though, that he had some serious temperament issues including a doggy version of agoraphobia, fearfulness and anxiety around people, etc. He also has had some health issues that we can only attribute to early trauma and malnutrition as a youngster ... adult teeth that weren't well rooted and popped out by the time he was a a year and a half old, cherry eye, demodex. Needless to say, he was not going to be going to a new home, and we had seriously considered putting him down, but he tries very hard and he's really a good boy, and he enjoys his limited life ... we just don't push him and we take it one day at a time. He's a clown, and we love him, and we just accept that for as long as we have him, he'll never be quite right, but he will be with us for as long as we can keep him happy and safe, and not go insane in the process.
He looked like this when we got him.
But with Tucker's help, he turned out pretty OK. He was very attached to Tucker when he was a puppy.
Such a handsome little squab.
That was probably more long-winded than it needed to be, but that's our story!
I moved to Winter Park, Florida from Baltimore last year ... I work for a newspaper, I keep a sporadic dog-related blog, I like to be outside. I also like to garden and plant things and bake bread, but I'm finding both of those things to be surprisingly challenging in this humid climate.
I do have three dogs--two are pit bulls, one's a mutt. They're ridiculously important to me.
Doc is 8 or 9 years old, rescue dog pulled off a chain in some Alabama breeders yard when he was younger in some kind of neglect/cruelty case, landed in the doggy clink, Turtle Moon rescue spotted him, got him to a foster home and then he bounced from one unsuccessful placement to another until he finally landed in my lap when he was 4. Oddly, I followed his progress on pit bull message boards, and I jokingly told the guy who was fostering him that I was smitten and that I was going to adopt him. A case of be careful what you wish for ...
Doc was, to say the least, a neurotic, spastic mess when we got him. He seriously needed work to do, so I started training him in schutzhund. He really liked it, did great in tracking in particular and he has two tracking titles (TR 1 and TR 2) and his BH, but we never did get him to a SCH I. We failed in two comical but valiant attempts (once we failed obedience on a brutally hot and stressful day, the other time we failed protection when an overly eager Doc thought he should be guarding the bad guy instead of sticking with me, so we DQ), but he did manage to nab a WPBTCA novice champion award in 2009, which was cool and fun to do.
We moved to Florida and took a break, and this past winter, right after we started training again, we had him xrayed for an intestinal obstruction, and we discovered that he's got some pretty serious arthritis throughout his spine and hips, so he's retired now and we just let him fool around and be a big jerk, which is his specialty.
I also have my little prince, Tucker, who is my baby boy. He was raised by my old lady dog, Reba, who we lost three years ago this October.
Reba on the left, Tucker as a baby on the right.
Tucker used to be a therapy dog and he liked to go visit people in nursing homes. I got busy and let his last certification expire, so now he just gets to be a social butterfly wherever he can get someone to pay attention to him.
He's also a rescue ... he was one in a litter of 7 that was going to be put to sleep at BARCS animal shelter in Baltimore because they were pit bull mixes. I grabbed the whole litter because I was struck by how amazingly social and sweet they were. I took two to foster, and I got a couple of rescues to take the others. We adopted out his sister to a great home that I still keep in touch with, but we kept Tucker. Look at that face, how could we not?
Tucker now.
And I also have Button, who was another rescue dog that I took in as a tiny puppy with the intention of fostering him until he was healthy enough to go to a permanent home. We discovered very early on, though, that he had some serious temperament issues including a doggy version of agoraphobia, fearfulness and anxiety around people, etc. He also has had some health issues that we can only attribute to early trauma and malnutrition as a youngster ... adult teeth that weren't well rooted and popped out by the time he was a a year and a half old, cherry eye, demodex. Needless to say, he was not going to be going to a new home, and we had seriously considered putting him down, but he tries very hard and he's really a good boy, and he enjoys his limited life ... we just don't push him and we take it one day at a time. He's a clown, and we love him, and we just accept that for as long as we have him, he'll never be quite right, but he will be with us for as long as we can keep him happy and safe, and not go insane in the process.
He looked like this when we got him.
But with Tucker's help, he turned out pretty OK. He was very attached to Tucker when he was a puppy.
Such a handsome little squab.
That was probably more long-winded than it needed to be, but that's our story!
