New Addition

Cdubya was looking around the humane society websites yesterday when she came across a 1 year old female border collie that looked eerily like Sazi. She called and found out that she was a stray that someone found and brought in. They named her Hope. She filled out their application and we went to see her after work.

Delaney has just been a complete mess since Sazi left us. Wouldn't do anything, no eating, no fetching the paper, always scared of everything. She needed a companion.

We took Delaney to go meet Hope and see how things worked. They hit it off right away. Hope was very similar to Sazi in many aspects. She was way more mellow than Delaney and loved to be hugged and petted (Delaney doesn't care for that sort of nonsense). We fell in love with her right away and Delaney, while she didn't show direct affection, you could tell that she felt more "normal" having a sister around her.

We completed the adoption (only $93 and they had her spade and microchipped, plus they gave us $500 in medical insurance in case our vet found anything wrong) and brought her home with us. She, like Delaney, is a great car rider. Hopped right up into the back of the Murano and laid down for the hour ride home.

Once we got her home I showed her the back yard and she explored the fence line (maybe looking for escape routes?). She was very good and got along with Delaney and our stupid cat just fine. I'm pretty sure her old home had a doggy door as she seemed confused by going in through an open door. We'll have to work on that. She did let us know when she needed to go out by banging her head on the back screen door trying to open it. We'll need to work on that. I don't think her old family put much effort into her training. She begged for food a little as we ate (quietly though) and is not really good with her commands yet. Delaney was trying to help her by doing each command as I gave them so she could see what to do. Either that or she was just showing off how smart she is. It's probably the latter.

At night she went and slept in front of the front door and we didn't hear a peep from her the whole night. When I got up though, she was lying in my chair. She's definitely a couch potato and loves to lay in your lap and be held.

I canceled my golf this afternoon and Cdubya stayed home with her to get her acclimated more. Not sure if we'll need to kennel her while we're gone or not, we'll find out soon enough. We'll be going to get her a new collar, leash and tag this afternoon and then taking her for a walk around the neighborhood so she can learn her surroundings. I'm very excited about our new addition and look forward to training her and teaching her to catch a frisbee like Delaney (so far she doesn't seem to be interested in toys).

Oh, I forgot. Since the humane society named her and she didn't really respond to Hope anyway, we decided to change her name. After many discussions I suggested Guinness, of course. We're going to try that for today and see how it takes. I started calling her by that last night and it seemed to work for me.

Here is a picture the humane society took of her. I'll have lots more this weekend.