One Dog, Two Dog, Three Dog….Four?

Texas and Tennessee have landed! What sweet boys these two are. Couldn’t find better mannered guests. (Well, guests who were housebroken might be better…) They are gentle and eager to please. They watch my (and everyone else’s) every move. Sadly, they both cower when anyone raises a hand above their waist, moves quickly, or picks up anything large (Ian has to keep his baseball bat hidden). I am guessing not every human has handled them kindly. No matter, they seem ready to give just about anyone a chance, loving on every person who walks through my door.

These guys seem grateful for every kindness thrown their way. They’re like that visiting relative who is always saying, “Please don’t got to any trouble….really, I’m fine.”  They still haven’t figured out what a treat is and Texas kept running into glass doors, so they seem a bit new to this living-in-a-house-and-being-loved thing. But they are both smart as whips, so they are picking up very quickly on everything, even the don’t-pee-in-the-house rule. We’ve outfitted them with “male dog wraps” which sounds kind of cosmopolitan but is actually a glorified diaper. Male Dog Wraps are my new favorite thing, ever.

It’s very good that T&T are such model guests because the house is overflowing with dogs. T&T arrived late Friday night and at 8am on Saturday morning Frank returned to us. He could not make the adjustment to his new home and his wonderful family. It just wasn’t the right fit. I know it was a heartbreaking week for both Frank and his adopters. It was very hard to hear the stories from afar, only able to offer advice when what I wanted to do was run down there and move in and help all of them. In the end, they made the difficult decision to return Frank to OPH and Nick and I knew immediately he had to come back to us. We are wrestling with that decision – the one I said I wouldn’t write about again in this blog. I’ve thought all along that it was up to us to choose a dog, but I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t actually up to the dog to choose us. We shall see. Meanwhile, we are loving on Frank and he has happily assimilated right back into our world and is currently lying behind me watching every word I type (and hopefully not reading this and thinking his little plan worked…).

I better change the subject before I get teary. Yes, I’m leaning one way on this, but I want to be smart and do what is best for our family and our future as dog fosters. Frank was very alarmed to find new dogs in the house when he arrived this morning and has challenged Ten on several occasions. Tex is happy to let him rule the roost, but Ten isn’t so willing to let him steal all the toys and all my attention. As you can imagine, Gracie’s head is spinning in place. She can’t figure out how she went from having us all to herself to being surrounded by three boy dogs in less than 24 hours. For the most part she is keeping her distance and spending a lot of voluntary time in her crate. The three boys are busy determining who is top dog and she seems happy to leave them to it.

Okay, I was going to change the subject so I’ll do that. You may remember that I said I was going to put T&T on the dual leash and see what happens. OMG they are amazing. I’m sure it helps that they are both so darn smart. Actually it’s Tex who seems to do most of the unsorting whenever they get tangled. He quietly backs up, ducks, or lifts a paw to untangle them while Ten keeps running about exploring. I promised pictures so…

Here’s us discussing the game plan..

And off we go…in different directions…

We can do this!

Don’t they look like professionals?

It’s gonna be quite a week!