In the image above the dog on the right is our new dog. In an earlier post I wrote about our beloved Simba who is no longer with us. He was a huge presence. Not just because of his 88 lb. size, he was a big personality and did nothing but love us.
We knew right away that to honor him and try to maintain that level of joy and happiness we would get another dog. Simba would not want us to live without that joy and happiness. In fact, we like the Golden-Doodle breed so much because of the consistency in demeanor and intelligence, we knew we would get another one.
One challenge was that we would be living in an apartment for 8 months then moving into our new home. Challenge? I say opportunity. Opportunity to break in a new dog at an apartment where the only risk is losing our security deposit, not ruining our brand new home. Let’s get on this!
So about a month and a half after Simba passed and we had settled into the apartment, we started the search. I lasted about 5 minutes because the state of finding rescue dogs online is atrocious and I cannot cope with that level of incompetency. So when I say “we” I really mean Lisa. She did all the work. After a few weeks she had her sights set on Golden Doodle that was given up because the family had another dog or two and this guy was just too big.
Off to Cincinnati. Wait… what?! Cincinnati?! Are you kidding me? Well, since I like Lisa and I like when Lisa likes me we packed up Lucky (the dog on the left in the picture above) early on a Saturday morning and drove to Cincinnati. We met our new dog whose name was quite unfortunate – Sparrow. Who names a dog Sparrow? We all got along so I packed up Lucky, Lisa and Sparrow and headed home.
Both Lucky and Sparrow were amazing passengers. Easily better than Lisa and I. One of us drove (either Lisa or I, not the dogs) while Luck got the front passenger’s seat to himself and Sparrow bonded with either Lisa or me while we were not on driving duty. He was amazing. He laid with his head on our lap and seemed to fit right in.
We knew there would be a lot of adjusting but this was nearly flawless. We changed his name to Spencer. In one day he answered to Spencer like an old pro. He was very polite. He would not get on the bed at bedtime until we asked him to come up, he just let us know he wanted to come up. When we eat, he lays down and does not bother us… amazing!
Could it be that we found a perfect fit? A dog with no flaws whatsoever?
As we build our new home we have lots of appointments to pick out everything from floors to handles and pulls. One evening we had an appointment. This was the first week we had Spencer. This would be the first time leaving him without one of us being around. He was such a good boy so far, what could go wrong?
When we got home Spencer had pooped in nearly every room in the apartment. A lot of poop in every room. As if he had been waiting for just such a moment. It was everywhere. We knew it was our fault. We didn’t know his schedule yet. We now know he takes a poop every evening. We also now know to close all of the doors when we leave so he can only poop on the vinyl floor. We also now know I am a genius for breaking in the dog in the apartment instead of the new house 🙂
Since then, we have not had that problem. All good, right?
Not so fast.
It turns out Spencer can open a “locked” garbage can. Especially when there’s a rotisserie chicken carcass inside. If you look closely, you know what you won’t see? You will not see one spec of chicken carcass. Not one. He ate the bones and everything. There’s not even any grease on the floor.
Looks like we have some more training to do. We need to train Lisa and me not to leave such delicious smelling waste in the garbage can when we are gone 🙂
Other than that, he has been awesome! Even worth a trip to Cincinnati. How often can you say that?
