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bringing janey home

Jennie is here! But we changed her name to Jane Lane. Janey for short.

I got done early at HKB so I went by the shelter around 1, even though my appointment was at 3:30. They were really nice about it. I had to wait a few minutes until they were ready to process the adoption, but they let me walk Janey outside while we waited. She's not too well leash trained, she tends to roam around you & wrap the leash around you while you walk. But as promised, she didn't pull on the leash & was very good about stopping when I stopped.

Her backstory is kind of sad. Apparently she was in a house with 12 dogs. Animal Control told the people that was too many, so they dumped 6 of them at the shelter. Several of the dogs were so frightened and poorly socialized they had to be put to sleep. But Janey and her brother and one other were sweet and got along with the shelter employees, so they got to stay. Janey has been getting obedience training since she got to the shelter. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell she only knows "sit" if you have a piece of hot dog in your hand. I'm going to have to work on that. On the bright side, she does seem to be house trained. When I walked her at the shelter, the first thing she did outside was go to the bathroom. And she's been in and out of the house all afternoon, with no accidents.

I had a hard time getting Janey into my car to go home. I don't know if she'd ever been inside a car before, but she just did not want to go. She's big too (60 pounds!) so I had to get a shelter volunteer to help me lift her into the car. Once inside she loved the car. It's about a half hour drive and I took the back roads so she'd have nice things to smell. I hope that next time she'll remember how fun it was and not hesitate to get into the car.

I kept her on lead at home until I was sure she wouldn't be aggressive with Thirteen or anything. Janey did growl once when they first met, but just a little growl to say she meant business. After that they got along fine. Well, to be honest they coexisted but didn't interact much. That's fine with me. I didn't want a dog who would pester Thirteen. Janey didn't seem to mind Thirteen following her around while she (Janey) explored the house and yard, so that was great.

Janey ran around exploring for a couple of hours. She was a bit clingy, always wanting me in sight if not right beside her. But I think that's to be expected, what with the totally new environment and all. I did a little yard work outside the fence, and she followed me but didn't try to get out of the fence. Whew.

Janey lay down about a half hour ago, and now she and Thirteen are both sleeping. I think it's been a highly successful afternoon. The next hurdle will be feeding them, which we plan to do in separate rooms. Wish us luck!

3 Comments

alicia said:

oh my gosh, yay!!!

christa said:

woo!! this is so great, sarah... congrats!

such a sad story about janey's sisters & brothers, though...

raynorgrace said:

so glad to hear she got off to a good start. i know tihs doesn't mean much, but she looks a lot like our friends' dog Iggy, who is one of the best canines i've ever met. hope she settles in and learns a few new tricks.

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