Met 2 German shepherd rescues this weekend. The first was a 4 year old abandoned by a breeder in Alabama. He was good sniffing butts, but face to face he would lurch and snap at our guy, who was unfazed by that and wanted to be buddies. The guy had just had his neuter surgery and had a cone, so that may have been part of the issue. The second was about 8 months and a stray found wondering locally. He was obviously starving as you could feels his hip bone and ribs. Really nice guy, but also reacted to our guy, but not as much as the other, and could have been the situation of meeting. The rescue suggested coming back when it wasn't below 0 with the wind chill and they could try hanging out together in their enclosure. We are thinking of giving it a shot as he was a really nice guy otherwise, and both were beautiful dogs. It is unreal the amount of dogs the rescues have up here from the south, as in almost all their dogs are from the south.
Beginning to think we are supposed to stick with our guy and not have another. Saw another German Shepherd at another local rescue, called to make sure he was still there and said I would head over for a meet and greet with our dog. He was an owner surrender due to the owners health issues. It took me an hour to get there, and someone else had come in while I was driving and said they wanted him. A bit ticked off that they didn't give me the chance to see him first as they knew I was coming and had been approved awhile ago, and this was someone who just walked in a little before I arrived.
That's unfortunate, but at least the doggie got a home. Maybe you could take a break for a little while and then try again?
So my buddy has a big boat that we went on this past weekend and I noticed his nose was a little bit mangled. When I asked him what happened he said his daughter's chihuahua bit him in the nose last night, and that he was dogsitting for his daughter over the whole weekend, so the dog was actually downstairs in one of the boat's bedrooms. About an hour later, another person was holding her hand saying that the chihuahua just snapped at her too. So I went downstairs and befriended the thing immediately by giving it little chunks of ham from my cuban sandwich. Within an hour it was sitting in my lap and acting like my best buddy on earth and that continued for the rest of the day. The other 10 people on the boat couldn't believe it. The next morning I walked up to it but before I tried to pet it, I thought "What if he doesn't remember me?" So I sort of put my hand close like I was trying to pet it but being super cautious at the same time. Sure enough, he snapped at me like I was Satan himself. He missed so no injury occurred but I got the message. I know the title of the thread is Man's Best Friend, but that chihuahua was just a pain in the ass to deal with. I heard they can be overly aggressive with pretty much anyone except the original owner, but when I heard the owner had been bit several times as well, I realized that chihuahuas are definitely not my favorite breed.
I guess I am biased, in that I have never been a fan of small breed dogs. At the same time one of my favorite dogs is our neighbors Shih Tzu. He is great, always looking for a petting and scratch, and happy to have you talk to him. If he is outside he comes over and if we open the door he walks right in to say hi. He was great with our Golden's, they were best buddies. Our Jackson he is not so sure of as Jackson is an energy level way above our Golden's. Jackson loves him, but I don't think the feeling is mutual, more I will tolerate your non stop energy because I like your people. I have had too many similiar experiences with other small dogs, of offering your hand and they try to take a bite out of it. We have a meeting tommorow with another rescue, this time a Great Pyrenees mix, 3 month old from Texas. I have to admit, I was hoping to find a Golden, Husky, or German Shepherd rescue, but these guys fly out of the rescues around here.
Found a stray Friday and he's not chipped so guess where he's going to live. Seems to be under six months old and very friendly. It's funny; he's only been here a day and a half and fits right in with the other dogs. All I have to do now is house train him and wait until he gets over his chewing phase. No name yet.
Excellent! Love the chewy, teething phase, we went through a dozen stuffed squeak toys in a couple months with our guy.