Imagine my disbelief, when my youngest daughter called me to tell me that she just got a dog. He knew that she had always wanted one ever since she had moved in with her family. So I naturally assumed that she would have a pup. Wrong! Obviously, she had decided beforehand that she wanted to take in a rescue dog. This may have been influenced by the fact that we had taken in a rescue Border Collie when she and her sister were very young. Therefore, he had used that experience to help her decide what to do. During the conversation, it became known that it was not a puppy, but an adult dog. In fact, he was 3 years old. He assured me that he had not been mistreated by his former owner, but that they had realized that the passing of the years made it impossible to take him for the necessary exercise and walks, so they made the sensible decision to ask his relocation. .
So now he knew he was a he! Also that he was 3 years old, so there would be no need for home training. He had one or two annoying little traits, like any dog I suppose, begging at the table, jumping on the sofa, for example. However, my daughter had embarked on a training course to eliminate these traits as soon as possible. So why did she have to call me that she couldn’t wait?
After the usual niceties, came the bombshell. “Can I change your name?” he asked cautiously. “Why would you want to do that?” I responded with a question! Because his name is… Scrappy! There was silence while I digested what I had heard and my daughter waited for the answer. “You mean like in Scrappy-Do?” I proposed. “Erm…Yes,” she replied. After a few awkward seconds, we both spontaneously burst out laughing. My daughter reminded me that years before she had bought a Dalmatian puppy as a gift for my wife when our Border Collie mix died. Aside from the fact that I had ignorantly complained to the salesperson that she didn’t have spots (Dalmatians don’t develop spots until a few weeks after birth), I insisted on calling her Spot. That was a great idea until the first time I had to call him out in public, only to be met with laughter from bystanders!
Anyway, she brought him to meet me. He is a Bijon Frize and looked very much like a small sheep with the curly tail of a pig. However, he had a wonderful temperament, and on top of that, my daughter had been spared the dreaded Puppy Potty training that is necessary with puppies. We talked a bit about her decision to have an adult dog instead of a puppy. It occurred to me that her considerations are probably the same as many people these days, where time is a precious commodity. She just had the best overall sense. These were her considerations that made her decision.
No puppy potty training was required. It did not require any inoculation, settlement on time, or special diet. Also, my daughter felt that she was doing something to help alleviate the rehoming issues senior dogs have in homes and kennels. I have to say when I think back to her calling, it now makes a lot of sense for a busy working family to consider fostering an adult dog instead of a puppy along with the social responsibility it displays.
I know that if I decide to take another dog, I will almost certainly visit the local rescue center first.
