Thursday, January 26, 2012

A Yorkie, A Porkie & A Pit

My mom found an emaciated puppy running around her neighborhood. She took the dog in and fed it, and did her due diligence to check for a microchip, report the dogs description to the various animal shelters in the area and posted flyers around her neighborhood. Nobody ever claimed the dog, and animal control only keeps them alive for three days, so with my mom the stray dog stayed. Mom fattened her up and got to know her personality. This dog was a love! Looking like a cross between a lab, pit or staffordshire and something else, she was sweet and loving and not at all like the pits you read about in the paper. She was potty trained and knew some basic commands. She only had one flaw, the girl could not walk on a leash! And she was quite strong, bull-dog strong. But my mom travels regularly for work and could not keep her. She looked for a home but a 50 lb. exuberant black pit-bull looking puppy is not easy to place. So I advertised her on The Fibromyalgia Fun House wall and low and behold, someone was interested.

Christmas eve I took her home to my not very large two bedroom apartment. Mom was going back on the road and I wanted to evaluate her before pawning her off on a fellow Fibrate. Well puppy, who I call Big Girl, was fine. Yorkie & Porkie, not so much. Yorkie will be seven this year and is becoming a grouchy old man. One playful swipe of Big Girl's oversized paw made him resemble a snapping turtle more so than a dog. But that was nothing compared to Porkie. Now Porkie herself is a rescue. She was picked up off the streets at four months old. Porkie's guardian angel saved her from the pound and took the scruffy looking, fur-matted sack of skin and bones to a rescue. Sitting outside Pet Smart one day, playing with all the other adoptable little puppies in the pin, she found us. But oh the fear! This baby doll was so scared! We brought her home and put her in her crate with her own new bedding and toys, and an open door. She didn't budge. Stared at us for a good 48 hours. She was completely terrified of everything and everyone. With hard work,  patience and lots of bravery on her part she eventually opened up and is now a very entertaining and extremely necessary member of our family. However, I clearly I had not taught her compassion for those in a similar situation

She was so rude! Even earned herself the nomenclature "Snivley Snit". She worked herself into such a tizzy I had to hide the stuffed "babies" she guards with her life, for my dog's own protection! She had found a pack she was not giving up and was ready to fight till her death to keep her place. Anytime Big Girl would come near her she turned into a teeth-baring hissing and growling little devil. Even I was grateful to not be a female dog on sleepover at my house for the weekend. The puppy just wanted to play but Porkie was not having it. I started calling Porkie Anaconda because her long skinny neck would stretch around corners to take snaps out of Big Girl. Of course that made Big Girl want to play, and faster than a Maserati goes from 0 to 10 this 50 lb. dog was frolicking and bouncing around my increasingly shrinking apartment. Which made Porkie snap, which made Big Girl want to play...and around the mulberry bush (quickly turning amethyst) we go! After diverting and calming this cycle a dozen times my patience was wearing thin. I had everyone settled down around me, all three dogs, and was able to get pockets of work done. But the second any of them moved, Big Girl wanted to play and Porkie became...Snively Snit! Of course me being me, I lost my patience and yelled. Yorkie and Porkie are well trained. When mom gets like that they split. But it just made Big Girl even more excited and hyper. Oh my, I had met my temper-tantrum match! So I had to calm down me, then Big Girl, then Porkie, then Yorkie. I was very happy when my husband came home from work. Never been so happy to see him, in fact! All is well that ends well. Big Girl is doing quite well in her forever home and Porkie has resumed possession of "Blue Baby", her most prized of all babies she is photographed above protecting in her sleep.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

1 comment:

  1. You know those long skinny stuffed dogs they make? and you see the commercial where the dachshund is carrying it around? My shih tzu has a 5" long blue dog. I had to put my old lab down a few weeks ago, and a few days later, I opened Max's kennel door and left it open. The lab was always shredding things, so all of Max's toys were kept in the kennel. So Max is carrying this blue dog around everywhere. If he's tired, he puts it on the bed, hoping I'll catch the hint. If he goes outside, he takes blue dog to the door, he drops it by the door and picks it back up again to keep with him everywhere he goes. Aren't animals wonderful? Lee Ann

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