A Dog in the House, Again

Weekend before last, we decided we were ready to get another dog.  We followed up with a couple of Lab rescue groups and before we heard back from the second one, Atlanta Lab Rescue had already lined up a volunteer who was fostering a dog to bring him by our house.  He had spent months in a shelter, but someone there thought he was adoptable and he ended up with Atlanta Lab Rescue.  He'd just been neutered and the person who was fostering him had only had him about 24 hours.  So there were lots of unknowns about this dog.  We'd asked for a lab mix -- Tom thought that without knowing anything about ancestry, we were better off not getting a purebred lab -- and that's probably why ALR thought this dog would be a good match for us.

We said yes.

He's a good-looking dog, who appears to me to be mostly but not exclusively Labrador retriever.  His ears are covered with longer fur, not the short velvety coat that was on Bullwinkle's ears.  He has a white patch on his chest, that doesn't really show on this photo.  His tail -- which also doesn't show -- is muscular and seems to wag uncontrollably most of the time.  When he wakes up and before he exits his crate in the morning it makes a really loud thump-thump-thump.  At the tip of it is a tuft of long, stiff white hair; it looks like a paint brush.

Given his recent history, it's not surprising that it's taking a little while for him to settle in.  He still seems to be afraid of Tom, although less so than when we got him.  He is not afraid of Caroline or me, but still is scared when we walk in carrying things.  He doesn't do too badly on the leash but gets very upset when we lead him by his collar.  He's not really comfortable yet in the back yard.  But he's good at retrieving a ball and unlike either Bullwinkle or Lorenzo will usually drop it at my feet and wait for me to throw it again, his tail wagging wildly.  I think someone taught him to do that, at some time.

Saturday night Mark invited us to go to Steve's Live Music.  Yoshi's band was playing Crosby, Stills and Nash covers, and they were great.  As I told Caroline, the place was packed full of people who were Tom's and my age, who all knew all words to all the songs.  It was really fun.  But I'd started the dishwasher just before we left, and it was making an Unusual Sound.  I'd thought about stopping it and letting it finish up after we got home, but I didn't.  We have a history with dishwashers at our house which is not a happy one.  I am thinking about Thanksgiving 2009, when our old dishwasher tried to burn the house down.  So even though the music was great and we got to catch up with Mark, who no longer lives on the street and we haven't seen in a while, I had this image in my head of the house burning down.  I didn't really think this was going to happen, and I didn't call Kathy to check on it, which I could have.  Would the firefighters would know to get Leonard out of his crate?  Would he bark and get their attention?  Would he be too afraid to move?  I was not worried about the house, in this particular mental loop; I was just worried about the dog.

We came home to an intact house (well, it was as intact as it was when we'd left), clean dishes, and a happy dog with a tail that wouldn't stop wagging.  But I left my sweater at Steve's.  I guess we'll just have to go back.