We adopted! After our many visits to the Dallas Animal Shelter, we connected with a young lad. It took a few visits for us to decide if he was going to fit into our household.
His name is Jax.He was named after a beer that was produced in New Orleans years ago.
The first night, I had my first (pack leader) bonding walk with him. Halfway through he spied a cat and went for it. I was holding him back and either I nudged the spring clip off his prong collar, or it just slipped – and off he went! The cat went up a tree on the median between the streets. He barked and jumped – and I tried to figure out how not to spook him into running out into late night traffic. Luckily, I think the trips to the shelter to see him and then driving him from the shelter to the house helped cement the “this is my pack leader/owner” vibe. So after he’d hopped around a little, I crouched down and called him and he hightailed it to me. I pinned him down and put the collar back on him (which I artfully reassembled while taking stock of the situation). It was bad enough to say, “The first walk was good, except for the time he got away from me” but it was better than, “He got away from me and got hit by a car.”
The cats are still taking stock of the situation and are appropriately freaked out.
While I’m definitely looking forward to the benefits of having a dog, my body is telling me that it’s not used to the exercise that I’ve already given him. That trip to the podiadrist may come sooner than later.
Wish me luck…..
