Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts

Goodbye Buddy Jr.

We had a lot of great times with Buddy Jr. He was so confused when we got him. He didn't know where he was, what was going on, or maybe even if he'd take another long drive to a far-away destination (with much different weather) at any moment. The snow perplexed him. The other dogs scared him. The songs of the birds enchanted him. He was in a new and different world and often sought the comfort of his crate, the one thing connecting his new world with his old.

We watched him get comfortable with receiving affection. I loved the way he would bury his skinny head into my stomach face-down when I would kneel down to pet him. He loved when we gave him a massage. He wasn't one for sitting down, so he'd stand the whole time blinking his eyes because he was so tired and relaxed, until he just couldn't stand it anymore and he had to go lay on his bed before he fell over. By the end, he went from the dog who was scared of the neighbors to the dog who couldn't wait to meet a new person!

We watched him learn to give affection. It was shocking, but very cute the first time he stuck that long nose under our comforter and sniffed our faces trying to show his affection. My husband loved the way Buddy Jr would wag his tail and attempt to jump (just lifting his front paws about an inch at a time) in the air when he'd come home from work. And the way he'd cry in a soft, gentle voice when my husband and I came home together. Buddy Jr. even licked me a couple of times.

We had a lot of silly times too. Like the first time I turned on the TV (after he'd already been here for a week and a half). He could not figure out what was going on. He just kept staring at the TV, looking at it from different angles, and moving his ears around. I don't think he had ever been around a TV before. And, who could forget the time (before Buddy Jr was fully house trained) when he was pooping on our wood floor in the office. When he was almost done, my husband saw him and said a stern 'NO' making poor Buddy Jr try to pull the last piece of poop back into his butt. It went in and out as he tried to stop it while he watched Al with an ashamed look. Finally he got it all the way back in, my husband took him out and he just couldn't get the poop back out of him when he was outside. Poor guy.

The good times were good. Our time with Buddy Jr. was definitely rewarding, but it was also challenging. And, as I've learned all to well lately, everything must come to an end. Sometimes you just know when a relationship needs to end. The parties involved just aren't serving each other's higher good anymore. It can be painful (very painful sometimes), but you know it's for the best. This is what happened with Buddy Jr. He did not get adopted; he was moved to another foster home.

It's funny how these things work sometimes. Buddy Jr. was presenting us with some issues we hadn't dealt with before and, given that he was our first foster greyhound and we knew that they have unique needs (especially the ones right off the track like Buddy Jr.), we were constantly seeking advice on how to handle these situations. So the foster home coordinator was well aware of the struggles we faced (trying to eat off the kitchen table and counters, wanting to go outside all the time, extreme diarrhea, etc.) and she decided that this was a dog for a pro. Our little Buddy Jr. was kind of like the Marley of the greyhound community.

So, unbeknownst to us, the foster home coordinator was looking for more experienced foster homes to take in our pup, while we were simultaneously realizing that we were in over our heads with this dog. The last couple of days he was here, I realized that he was scaring me by his barking (abnormal for him) and that I was proceeding to do exactly what he wanted me to do (he had these big, sharp teeth and was basically bigger than me - no excuse, I know). I knew this was very bad for Buddy Jr. Our #1 job as foster parents was to mold Buddy Jr. into the ideal dog for his future home. Giving in to bad behavior is most definitely not the way to get any dog to be the perfect companion. Although we knew that it would be difficult, we knew that he had to move on. And when we told the foster coordinator and heard that she was already working on it, I knew that it was the right thing to do.

Buddy Jr. now resides at the home for sassy greyhounds (an unusual trait for the breed). Or maybe it's more like greyhound rehab. He lives with four other greyhounds and some humans who work miracles on turning the challenging dogs into adoptable best friends.


Buddy Jr. watching TV for the first time
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Housetraining Progress

I think we are making major progress on the housetraining front. Last night Buddy Jr. passed out in his crate and would not get out of there to come into the bedroom with us. After lying in bed for about an hour or two, I finally fell asleep. It took this long to drown out the sound of the squirrel in the attic gnawing on his nightly meal of walnuts, right above our bed. (We're working on this. We had somebody come out with humane live traps, but we haven't had any luck yet. This could be because the dog keeps trying to sniff the peanut butter sandwich used as bait and tripping the trap.)

At any rate, after much annoyance, I finally fell asleep when suddenly Buddy Jr. comes running in our bedroom, sticking his long nose under our blankets and sniffing around, followed by barking and crying. Do you know that feeling when someone startles you in your sleep and you can feel the adrenaline and the blood pumping all through your body? That's how it felt. Barking is really out of character for Buddy Jr. and he doesn't do much crying either, though he did cry once before when he had to go outside to pee. So, on top of being in a startled, adrenaline-filled daze, I was now freaking out that the dog wouldn't be able to hold it if I didn't hurry my butt out of bed and into the arctic February air. I jumped up out of bed, put my socks on and ran to the door to take the dog out. These dogs can only be let out in a fenced yard or taken out on a leash, and since we do not have a fence, I had to be Buddy's night time potty companion.

Greyhounds have a strong instinct to wander and chase, which is only further reinforced by their racetrack training. If we let him out on a long rope like we have done with other dogs, he could see something, run after it and brake a leg or snap his neck when he got to the end of the rope. (They can reach 45 mph in 3-4 strides) An electric fence doesn't work for much the same reason. He could run and be through the electric fence before even feeling the shock and be scared just enough to not want to come back to the house.

From my little nighttime disruption story, you may think I'm bitter, but I'm actually very grateful. I'm grateful he's learning that he has to go outside to go potty and that he has to let us know when he needs to go. I'm also grateful we didn't wake up by stepping in a puddle of urine only to find a giant smelly pile of dog poop just beyond it. I can't even imagine how lovely it would be to have those two things marinating and cooking on our heated floors all night long, the aroma wafting through the house.

My original intent was to give a little snippet about Buddy Jr's progress and give a recipe for a green smoothie, but it just doesn't feel right putting these two things in the same post after the last mental picture I painted for you. I put the smoothie recipe in another post.

Here's a shot of Buddy Jr. hiding his face in his toy, refusing to get out of the crate and make the *long* (not really) trek to the bedroom to go to sleep.

Rescued Greyhound Sleeping in Crate with Toy
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