Hannukkah Party

Today we went to a Chanukah party at our friend's who live in Providence. They invited one of the dogs and Mama made me pick which. Shaya's choice. Haha. Opal needed it more, since she hasn't been out of the house in two days. But I picked Tom because Opal + reasonably small apartment/house are not the greatest combination.

Tom was really excellent. He's good with their family. Jonathon is the sort of man Tom doesn't mind. And Tom was a great match for their lab/shepherd mix, Bella. They played a lot together and were quite appropriate. I called a timeout once when Tom's growls sounded like they were getting a bit aroused. But they were really good about having pauses and not getting out of control.

Tom's crate clawing is going pretty well, too. He got in the habit of clawing at his crate when he thought he'd be released and I hate to see the mesh get clawed at so I'd just open it quickly. Fail. 6 months ago, maybe, I decided I was going to put an end to it and started up a program where if he clawed I'd walk a few steps away rapidly. No clawing, I'd walk forward. He quickly figured it out. The first session took a couple minutes but now it's really quick. Interestingly he still claws but as soon as I start playing the game and step back deliberately he'll stop clawing and for the most part won't claw again. The only problem is that when I actually have to open the crate I try to do it quickly because if I back away with it half open he could squeeze out. Mostly it's a success though.

The family we visited are thinking about getting a new dog. Smaller and black. Bella has tons of white fur and is 65 pounds. I offered to search petfinder (it's so fun and addicting) for them. Now I'm not sure though that I feel comfortable recommending shelter dogs on petfinder since the two we've gotten through a local shelter and a rescue group have both had significant issues. I know there are people who adopt and get perfect little angels with no major behavioral problems, but that hasn't been our experience. Bella came from a rescue that brings dogs up from the south. The family told them they were first time dog owners and Bella is a perfect dog for them. She's a very bomb-proof dog. So if that rescue has another dog that would fit their criteria that would probably be best, since they were very reliable in the past. It is a dilemma believing in rescuing dogs but the chances of them having major issues does need to be taken into account.