Tales of Pet Rescue

September 17, 2010 10:17 AM

Tales of pet rescue

Example:

Sadie was a stray who “adopted” my daughter while she was stationed in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia while serving in the US Navy. Over the course of a week and change, my daughter was waylaid in the parking lot of her apartment complex two or three times a day by this lovely little calico kitty. She would run up to her, stopping directly in her path, plop down on the pavement, and roll over onto her back with her belly fully exposed—as if to say, “Go ahead. Take me for a test drive. Once you’ve petted this creamy white belly, you won’t be able to resist taking me home.”

My daughter already had two cats, and was not looking to make an addition to her household. But one rainy night, she found this feline beauty plaintively mewing at her apartment door as she stepped out to go to the grocery store. All her resistance was washed away with the rain and she made the decision on the spot to take her into her “family”.

My daughter afterwards reported to me that, later on that same evening, as she piled into bed with the TV tuned to one of her favorite shows, Sadie hopped up onto the bed and made a beeline straight for her side. She propped herself on my daughters leg and looked up at her adoringly, and then actually let out an audible sigh of apparent contentment and satisfaction. My daughter knew at that moment that her fate was sealed. She waited over two weeks for someone to claim their “lost” cat, all the while hoping fervently that no one would. Thankfully, no one did. She has been a part of my extended family ever since.

posted by Joe Beese (35 comments total)

Related is the story of Shadow Kitty. WARNING: SAD.
posted by mkb at 10:28 AM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Is this where we post pictures of our rescue pets? Or videos?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:28 AM on September 17, 2010

Nice! Our calico kitty found us similarly. We were walking to our car from a dinner date a few months after our last elderly cat had taken his leave when we saw a very small longhaired calico chasing a bird. When she saw us she ran across the street and started flirting, but seemed very shy. When she eventually got the nerve to up to let us pet her, we realized that she had been on the streets for some time - her hair was filthy and matted; she had a dryer sheet tangled in her tail. She was so small, less than a pound. We thought she was a kitten.

We took her home, trimmed out the ugly crap from her coat, and fed her, carefully at first. Boy was she hungry. When we got her into the vet a week later we were in for a shock: she was a year old... and pregnant!

A few months later, she had two beautiful kittens. Sadly, one was hit by a car at about nine months and died. The calico, and her son, are doing great, and both of them dote on our large, wary, and somewhat confused dog, who accepts their headbutts and nose kisses happily but clearly expects to get whacked by a claws-out paw at any moment.
posted by mwhybark at 10:31 AM on September 17, 2010

Is this where we post pictures of our rescue pets? Or videos?

Of, course. Yes. Yes it is.

Muriel just turned 15 y.o. (and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism last week). Her 'rescue' step-sister, Priscilla, is now 6 y.o.
posted by ericb at 10:41 AM on September 17, 2010

blue_beetle: "Is this where we post pictures of our rescue pets? Or videos ?"

Yes. I demand more MeFiPet pictures.

My own loving hound doesn't have any tear-jerking love-at-first-sight story, but still. Rescue dogs and cats are awesome!
Yes, he's scrawny in that picture. We were still putting weight on him at the time.
posted by specialagentwebb at 10:42 AM on September 17, 2010

Is this where we post pictures of our rescue pets?

I insist.

This is Jones - known to readers of the Green. And this is Sylvester - who usually has that bewildered expression.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:45 AM on September 17, 2010

My parents had a cat that basically pulled the "poor little match girl" act on them one cold and miserably rainy Christmas Eve.

They wanted to mix a couple drinks, and realized they were out of Coke to mix with their rum. My parents lived way out in the countryside, and it was about 8:00 pm on Christmas Eve. The closest place to get a couple Cokes under the circumstances was this little back road gas station about three miles away, which would be closed but did have a vending machine out front.

So my mom drove down to the closed, dark gas station, pulled up near the machine in the pouring rain, got out and started feeding change into it. When she had her Cokes and turned back to the car, here's this bedraggled kitten that's climbed into the front seat is sitting there looking at her and meowing.

My mom gently removed it from the car, saying all the appropriate things about how it couldn't come home with her because they already had a cat, and a couple of dogs, and all that. And she drove home and told my stepfather what had happened.

Their stories differed in some details, but basically it was about 10-15 minutes before my stepfather told her "go back and get the cat." Which she'd pretty much decided to do anyway. So she did, and it promptly climbed back into the car out of the rain, and that was the end of that. They had that cat for years.
posted by Naberius at 10:52 AM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

True story. We acquired our first cat after I found it squirreled away in the engine compartment of my car. After driving 50 or 60 miles to a business appointment. I got out in the parking lot and hit the lock button on the fob. The alarm chirped, and then was followed by a low, regular, beeping-like sound. Figuring the alarm was on the fritz, I got closer and realized that it was a cat.

Oh lord, I thought. I ran over a cat. I looked under the car and find...nothing. A woman walking by in the parking lot hears the sound and comes over. Together, we follow the sound to the front of the car and somewhere under the hood. I can't wait around, so I head to my appointment, figuring that The Cat will escape while I'm gone. An hour later, I come out, and hit the unlock button. The alarm chirps. No sound. I do it again a few times. Nothing. One last time...and get a reply from under the hood.

I spend the next 45 minutes on my back, in the sun, in a parking lot, with my leatherman in hand trying to remove all of the undercarriage covers so that I can extract the damn thing. After an hour, I get ahold of her and pull her out. The woman from earlier has gathered in her office window with several officemates, all of whom cheer as I hold up the cat, who was probably about six weeks old. They donate a box, and graciously decline my offer of a Free Cat. So I take her home. The kids see her and that's pretty much it. The dog is only a week or two away from dying. We hang up a few signs in the neighborhood, but no one claims her, so now we've got a cat.

Shortly thereafter, we adopted a second one from the newspaper so that she'd have a buddy.

Epilogue: the rescued cat spends most of her day trying to get outside. When she does get out, she bolts for the middle of the yard and freezes. One of us goes outside and hauls her back in. The other cat? The one I didn't sweat and swear and groan to acquire? She spends her day asleep at my feet or shadowing me around the house. Other than a lazy spot by the window, she could give two shits about going outside.

The moral of the story is that cats are bizarre. How the first one got into the car - to say nothing of surviving a 60 mile ride at highway speeds - is completely beyond me. We've since seen a couple of strays, one of which is a likely littermate and another who is probably the mom. Both have resisted attempts to get closer.
posted by jquinby at 10:52 AM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is Baxter and Daisy. They are littermates, found at 12 weeks sickly and starving at the edge of a parking lot after their feral mother didn't come back. Someone was able to trap them and take them to a local vet, whose staff nursed them back to health. B & D came home with me after I visited the vet to buy fleadrops for my dog.

This is Delia. She ended up in animal control after following someone home. She was 4 months old and already in heat. I brought her home to discover she only likes men.

This is Monty. Someone tossed her from a car when she was ~4.5 weeks old. I came very close to getting run over by a Mercedes while retrieving her from the freeway. Note: don't do this. It was extraordinarily stupid and dangerous and it was also the moment I finally realized my own mortality.

Every stray has a story, most of us who end up as caretakers of these cats and dogs try to piece together a narrative that makes sense: why would someone do this, leave these animals to fend for themselves, but all we can really do is give the story a happy ending.
posted by jamaro at 11:05 AM on September 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

I love rescued kitties! Here is my current foster demon Trampler! He more often is doing something wicked like this or this. He was brought into the hospital where I work as a stray. As you can sort of see in the third link, he has nerve damage to his right front leg and doesn't really use it well. Doesn't stop him from raising hell though. (Also if anyone is in the market for a kitten...)
posted by troublewithwolves at 11:12 AM on September 17, 2010

Sweet Georgia Hound - rescued by a group who takes care of lost, stray animals after looking for their owners. She was found with what was likely her sister, but we could only manage one dog in our home. Hope her sis is doing well.
posted by fijiwriter at 11:16 AM on September 17, 2010

fijiwriter -- What cuties! I love this picture of them!
posted by ericb at 11:25 AM on September 17, 2010

A family down the street from us purchased two rabbits for their children. The children were too young to properly care for them and the parents were unwilling so they just dumped them outside in the yard to fend for themselves. Both were mostly white and easy targets for predators. You could spot them a mile away.

I kept seeing them in the morning and evenings going to and from work and one even ventured into my yard. My youngest was able to catch that one and with the permission of the previous owners she became our bunny. We've had her for a year now.

We were hoping to catch the other one as well but it was nowhere near as tame as Rexie and not too long after it stopped showing up. You imagine what probably happened.

Our last four rabbits have all been rescues. I keep saying never again, but I just can't say no to a bunny in need.
posted by tommasz at 11:36 AM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Our Spike was locked in a box with his brother and left to die in an apartment building storage space by an asshole sociopath who would later go on to stab the building janitor to death just for shits and giggles. They weighed less than 2 pounds and were approximately 2 weeks old. Our vets (respectively) didn't think they'd make it. Both were bottle fed and grew up into fat and sassy cats until my cat's brother died at the young age of 6 this year from some kind of heart problem that could have been related to the time they spent in the box.

Almost every time I look at Spike and think of how we got him, I want to find that guy and cut his fucking hands off with a blunt knife. And then pour nail polish remover on the bloody stumps.

But, you know, happy ending and all that.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:41 AM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

True story. We acquired our first cat after I found it squirreled away in the engine compartment of my car. After driving 50 or 60 miles to a business appointment. I got out in the parking lot and hit the lock button on the fob. The alarm chirped, and then was followed by a low, regular, beeping-like sound. Figuring the alarm was on the fritz, I got closer and realized that it was a cat.

We adopted a kitten that had been discovered the same way when I was in high school. The poor thing never really got over the experience and was always a little skittish around...well, anyone, human or feline. Still, he lived to be 17 and was healthy for nearly the whole time, so I guess that also counts as a happy ending.
posted by Epenthesis at 11:53 AM on September 17, 2010

There was no harrowing journey to adopting Gus. I saw him on the website of a no-kill shelter that adopts and rehabilitates high risk pets and he was their Pet of the Month. They said he had asthma and had to be kept away from the other cats because of allergens(he's allergic to cats? yep, apparently).

Two weeks later, he still hadn't been adopted, so I made a no-obligation appointment to visit him at the vet's office when he was staying. He was ours the moment we met him - he was the friendliest, wheeziest, cat I'd ever met, and he could not stop headbutting and purring at us. He had half a collapsed lung due to a bout with pneumonia, he'd have to take four pills a day for the rest of his life, oh...and he also had herpes. None of it mattered - he was coming home with us. Later, we found out that he was also very clumsy, and had a propensity to snort like a little gremlin.

We agreed to keep him outside the bedroom because we're both allergic to cats(later, we find out that Gus is not very allergenic), but after an hour of purring, door smashing, and an asthma attack, we gave in and let him in. He has slept right next to us every night since, taking up a full third of the bed.

But anyway, the asthma is better, and he's a happy, sleepy, cuddly, meowey purrball now.
posted by sawdustbear at 11:55 AM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Many years ago, I noticed a stray cat as I was walking home from work. I tried to lure her to me, but was unsuccessful. One of my neighbors in the building managed to get her inside and named her Clio.

It turned out that she was pregnant, but when it was time for the kittens to be born, they were stuck somehow and weren't coming out. The rockstar vets at Hyde Park Animal Clinic in Chicago did a c-section on Clio and all 6 of her kittens survived, though one lost the tip of his tail due to it getting caught in a clamp or something during surgery. There were 3 vets there that day; one took care of Clio, and the other two each worked on 3 kittens.

They were all adopted, and all spayed/neutered. We took the calico & the one who lost part of his tail and they were very good cats indeed.
posted by mogget at 12:05 PM on September 17, 2010

He was brought into the hospital where I work as a stray.

What kind of work do you, as a stray, do at the hospital? ; )

I kept seeing them in the morning and evenings going to and from work...

What kind of work did the bunnies do? ; )

I keed. I keed.
posted by ericb at 12:11 PM on September 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

Car cat, who does not care.
Adopted cat, who does.
posted by jquinby at 12:28 PM on September 17, 2010

Honey was bought by my crazy neighbours when she was a puppy. Me and my housemate got to see a lot of her, since they got fed up of how 'badly behaved' she was in the house (read: they left a 12-week-old puppy home alone, left a mobile phone within puppy reach, and then were horrified that she chewed it when it started making noises) and kept her outside. In Scotland. In November. Day and night, with no shelter.

We called the SSPCA, who gave my neighbours several warnings (to their surprise - how on earth could they be expected to keep the puppy in the house, when it wouldn't even behave? Take it for walks? Buy it an expensive kennel? How on earth could they be expected to do such things?). The puppy gave up sitting on the neighbours' doorstep and crying, and started sitting on ours and crying instead. Me and my housemate were PhD students who spent most of our waking hours at the university, and were around a lot less than the crazy neighbours, but the puppy had decided we were a much better bet.

The first night it got really, really cold outside, and we were sitting in the only warm room in the house watching Alias with large mugs of hot chocolate, we heard the puppy crying again and decided we'd Had Enough. Went outside, picked up the puppy, carried her next door, and told the neighbours that their dog was crying dammit.

Crazy Neighbour #1 actually apologised - but to us for the noise, rather than to the dog for the mistreatment. Told us she was getting rid of the dog first thing in the morning, because it was a terrible dog and they were absolutely sick of it.

Five minutes later, we were back in the kitchen with a puppy curled up between us, trying to work out how the hell to manage our schedules now.

She's now 5 and lives with my former housemate down in England. She's the sweetest, funniest dog ever. God only knows what my crazy neighbours were thinking when they got a dog in the first place, but at least it ended up well for the rest of us.
posted by Catseye at 12:52 PM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

...that last link should point here. Ahem.
posted by Catseye at 12:53 PM on September 17, 2010

Temperatures dipped to 2 C today and I wish I could thank all the people who managed to capture about a half dozen stray budgies over the summer and took them to the humane society. I adopted one and my old co-worker took the other five. Feisty is such a little music box and a fast flyer...it's no wonder he escaped!
posted by Calzephyr at 12:56 PM on September 17, 2010

My dad and I have a fraught relationship. He's brilliant, analytical and macho in equal measure. He has no time for other people - actively detests them for the most part. The first glimpse I had that his opinion for animals was different was when I asked why he didn't hunt like the other manly men of his peers. "I looked at the deer through the site and I just didn't want to kill it. I just couldn't."

The second time I saw this glimpse was when my step-mother told me a stray we had seen before was lying in the dust by the road. We assumed his limp prevented him from hunting, and we asked my dad to put him out of his misery instead of letting the poor thing suffer for its last three hours. My logical, uncaring father's shoulders slumped and he agreed. We thought he was burying it, it took him so long.

To my joy, and this is the best memory I have of my dad, I saw him walking towards the house with a tin of tuna in one hand and a starving cat in the other. Some god that smiles on obstreperous men and little cats decided that Tenessee Williams the cat and my father belonged together. We all nursed him back to health, but he is my father's kitty, and no mistake. He got to him in time, and Tenessee now dotes on my elderly father.

The day he saved that little black kitty was the first time I realised that sometimes love requires terrible bravery. It was the first time I knew how strong my father really was.
posted by katiecat at 1:19 PM on September 17, 2010 [10 favorites]

Morris was my first cat. Adopted from the pound when I was 7 years old (early 1980s). He lived another 21 years and was my bestest friend. He learned to meow my name, Anna. When I would tell the story, of course people would say I was hearing what I wanted to hear in his meows — but once some neighbor friends heard his "Aaa-naa" for themselves, it soon got out that I had a Talking Cat. He is very missed.

Malo was my second cat; the first one I adopted in France. His mother had been abandoned when her owners discovered she was pregnant... I came up with Malo's name while playing word games with French friends. The French word for cat is "chat", pronounced "sha", basically, and the word for "marshmallow" is "chamallow". So introducing "le chat Malo" sounded like introducing "the marshmallow". His claim to fame was being the first cat evar with a blog, waaay back in 2001. I took it down because it got loads of spam, but still have some of the webcam photos up: Chat Malo Discovers Buffalo Fred, Plotting a Webcam Attack, and a Myspace angle shot.

Malo passed away after escaping out a badly-shut window not long after I moved into my then-new apartment. A new neighbor who'd seen him and admired him on my patio asked me where he'd gone; I sobbed about him being hit by a car. A few days later, she showed up with Kanoko, who had been abandoned in an apartment building entrance at the start of August (which is "vacation month" here, and, sadly, corresponds to a spike in abandonments). The furry dear's whiskers had even been cut off. Two years later, he's happy, takes regular showers, eagerly awaits me at the door every evening, and enjoys working out his pecs. This "lion" shot of him is one of my favorites. He stole my shirt!!

To keep him company, a year ago I looked for a second cat. Grey eventually found his way to me: he'd been abandoned in Le Cannet (just above Cannes) by his owner "because she was moving". (Sigh.) A man from a non-profit org that cares for street cats in that area quickly "adopted" him, but could only care for him on the streets. Grey was so gentle and sweet that he regularly got beaten up by more street-wise cats, though. He ended up getting badly wounded, going septic and nearly dying... that was when the organization found me. I agreed to take him in. From his very first days, he was Just So Gosh-Darned HAPPY to be with Kanoko and I, and his overflowing joy never stopped. Always chattering, always purring, always checking on where I was and then happily punctuating his discovery with a cheery "meow!" and purr. He would share other discoveries with me too, I especially remember him calling me over to see a snail, and the little happy-dance he did on his front paws when we both looked at it. Then the snail moved. "MEOOOOOOOOW!!!" he said excitedly. The sweetheart, sadly, died just over a month ago, of Feline Infectious Peritonitis. He was taken from us far too quickly. Kanoko mourned a few days by looking for him everywhere, then sitting in the middle of the living room and meow-wailing. He still licks himself neurotically, which he never did before, but his morale has gotten better.

Patches is the latest newcomer. Her previous owners were an American couple who'd come to Nice for MBA studies. They still hadn't found jobs back in the US before returning, and didn't know where they'd be living, much less how they'd afford a place to live or if it would allow pets. So I took her in. She misses her mum and dad a lot, and still needs time hiding to herself, but is a real snugglebug and meow-machine.
posted by fraula at 1:21 PM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

A girlfriend and I were finishing up an early-winter hike in the mountains and were throwing stuff into the truck. We noticed a deer curled up in the middle of a mowed field by the parking lot. Odd. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a very large hound dog curled into the tiniest "I'm freezing my ass off" ball possible. Enter into my life: Otter. (We eventually got in touch with his owners though a phone number on collar, but they didn't want him back. He was a bad bear dog, I guess, so they were going to let him die from exposure or starvation.)

My wife and I visit a run-down county shelter for no apparent reason. We were bored? Nearby? Anyway, it's full of unwanted litters, feral dogs, the very sick elderly, etc. Off in the corner there's one young adult dog being quiet but watching us intently. I kneel down by his cage and he sits and offers up his paw to shake. *heart melt* Oh, he's someone's dog, and they'll come to claim him. We ask the tender, just to be sure: "oh, he was surrendered for being too destructive in an apartment." On the spot we claim and adopt Levi. The first week here, he chewed some plastic screwdriver or something, but nothing since. Awesome, awesome dog.

(I don't have pictures of our most recent rescue, Rocket. My apologies to the pet gods.)
posted by introp at 1:23 PM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's what the woman from the rescue outfit told me about my Aussie, back when his name was still the one she gave him, Flash:

He was pathetic, less than 30 pounds. He's almost 40 now. You can see how he was two days from death. He was covered with fleas and I had to leave him in the garage the first night. When I took him outside, he collapsed on the ground.

Here are the pictures she sent me of him in the pound where she found him and at her home.

And here is what he looks like now. He is the joy of my life, second only to my husband.
posted by bearwife at 1:28 PM on September 17, 2010

Lisa found a small black-and-white pit bull wandering in traffic in Modesto, CA. He was friendly, trusting, and good-natured, so she figured he must have a home, but no owner turned up. Lisa already had four dogs, so she sent word out to all her animal-rescue friends, and one of them got in touch with me.

I'd just moved across the country. Most of my stuff was still in boxes; I was in no position to take on a dog, really, but it was Crosbie so of course we made it work.
posted by tangerine at 3:16 PM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I came here for stories about football, and left sadly disappointed.
posted by gene_machine at 3:19 PM on September 17, 2010

I love anything that encourages people to rescue creatures. I know getting an adult animal whose history you don't know is sometimes a pain in the ass but still, totally worth it.

We found The Baron wandering around outside Smithville, TX and we're still glad to have it. We adopted Vanna (who was 6 at the time) from a guy moving out of the country who couldn't stand the thought of having her stay in a quarantine, or living in a tiny eastern European flat.

We love them both and they quite like each other.
posted by Saminal at 3:25 PM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Truly heartwarming... kudos to all you rescuers!
posted by kevinsp8 at 3:57 PM on September 17, 2010

Why did you have to post them when I wasn't home and don't have time to go through and appreciate and post links to my rescues? The nerve....

Can't wait to go through this. Thanks!
posted by inigo2 at 7:05 PM on September 17, 2010

I have heard many suggestions as to what makes humans unique among the animals, and some of them hold more or less water depending on (sometimes weak) comparisons with various other creatures but... I think rescuing pitifal companion animals is completely unique to us. And totally awesome.

Signed,

Owner of a cool cat with no name (does Kitty Kitty Meow Meow count?) rescued from an animal shelter but with no cool story to go with it.

This thread is awesome, you are amazing people, all of you.
posted by marble at 7:18 PM on September 17, 2010

Nine years ago, I took my trash to the dumpster. I found a very skinny black cat with most of his fur gone due to a gross infection on half of his body. He was meowing up a storm and drooling. He was basically the most disgusting cat I've seen. He was very scared, but I managed to coax him to my apartment. Drove to WalMart and stocked up on all the possible cat supplies I could need. When I came back, after shy overtures and unsuccessful attempts to teach him how to play with toys, he briefly snuggled (and drooled) on the bed. Then he laid down on my dirty clothes and stared at me while purring until I fell asleep.

Despite his obvious desire to be friendly and petted, it very quickly became clear to me that he was an abused cat, and I had to work for a long time to get him to trust me not to hit him. He would follow me from room to room - even a ten second trips to the kitchen to get a soda meant I had an escort. (This stopped only when I lived with a partner that he loved, so he would divide time between us.) He kept a close watch on me, but would only allow brief petting when I approached him in a certain way. Picking him up was absolutely out of the question.

I tried to place him in new homes twice after his infection healed up (owning a cat at that time seemed very unwise), but the new owners returned him to me both times. Then I decided to wait until after Halloween to place him again... and sometime in January I realized that I had a cat.

He was my constant companion through a long bought of severe depression, and was a complete pain in the ass when he developed a series of urinary tract infections and peed all over my house constantly. (Poor kitty.) Once he peed all over me when I picked him up at the vet's office after surgery. We've been through a lot (of pee... *sigh*) together, and I love him so much. He just got a bath tonight, so he's slightly less fond of me right now. He still sleeps on my bed right beside me. He no longer follows me from room to room, but my place is tiny and he always knows where I'm at. He's no longer scared of me or anyone else. He wants to be petted all day long, and loves to play with his toys. He's right next to me as I write this, purring away and head-butting my arm. His appearance in my life meant that one starving and sick cat was given shelter and vet care and affection, and one depressed woman who cried all the time was slowly given massive amounts of love and affection. In time, we both got better.
posted by studioaudience at 9:52 PM on September 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

bearwife, what a cutie! Our pooch was a rescue too and we think he's half Aussie half cattle dog, but are unsure. Friends' neighbors moved here from Idaho (IIRC) with him when he was a pup, got pregnant and had a baby and got too busy to deal with a smart pup and stuck him out in their yard on a lead.... for about a year.

They finally realized they were wrecking the dog and made plans to get rid of him; sadly the planned to do that by dropping him off at the pound. Our friend got wind of this and insisted we had to take him, as we had been vaguely nattering about a dog.

He is not as boundlessly energetic and task focused as we were concerned he might be. He will probably always be a little needy and wary of kids as a result of his sad year on the stake. He has a very large dog vocabulary and learns new words, object and proper nouns in particular, more or less immediately. He will grab us by the hand or clothes and move us from room to room if we let him and he feels the need to do so, for example if it is bedtime.

Now that he's past his puppy years, he seems to be getting more and more protective of the house, which is both good and bad. Today walking him in the rain he just would not believe that I wasn't going to do something about some squirrels he thought he'd treed. Watching him under the tree made me wonder if it's not cattle dog in him but maybe some sort of hunting dog. He couldn't get over it. I'm glad to know him.
posted by mwhybark at 1:36 AM on September 18, 2010

Picture, please, nwhybark?

My guy is very like yours, but I am glad to say that he has overcome his fear of men, small kids, and loud noises over time. He too has a large vocabulary, as well as a command of the meaning of many gestures. He, too, takes his obligation to herd my husband and me -- and our four cats -- very seriously. And our home, too, is under complete doggy protection.

I love many things about my guy -- his freckles, his smarts, his fondness for belly rubs, his open joy at any kind of play, his companionship on my runs and walks, his curiosity, his sense of fun, and his unending ability to hide his bones in places I can't figure out. But most of all I love his brilliant dark caramel eyes, which hold all the intelligence of a chimpanzee, and love besides.

Since he also came into my life at the time my adored father died unexpectedly, I'm with studioaudience . . . it is hard to say who rescued who.
posted by bearwife at 1:36 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]