In case you haven’t read the previous posts…

• Our Rescue Dog – How you can help (how we found him, his night with the police, a morning trip to the vet, and raffles for great craft stuff I’m donating to his cause)
• Usborne Books for our Rescue Dog (A friend who sells Usborne children’s books offered to have me host an online book party and donate the profit — including her own cut — to the dog’s care. That’s 25% of all sales. I’m pretty sure September 9th is the last day for the book sale though, so if you want to order something, hurry!)
• Issues with the “Donate” button (Several people asked if they could donate without buying raffle tickets, so I added a “donate” option to the shop, since the paypal “donate” button wasn’t working.)

So, Dog has been fine here all week (I think today was day 10 that we’ve had him), and he and Zora have really gotten along. Dog doesn’t have any desperate need to be “alpha” or “top dog” so Zora realized he wasn’t a threat (and that he was a cool playmate) pretty quickly. I think he’d make an easy transition into a home that already had a dog or other pets (he did fine with cats on our walks too). He is also great with kids. No jumping or nipping or anything. Just calm standing still while they pet him.

He’s seemed to fill out a bit more over the week and a half, thanks to 5 meals a day and a lot of relaxing.

We did learn one thing though… despite being well-fed and loved and having a fun black-furred playmate, Dog has a tendency to want to run into the woods. We were playing in the dog park (off-leash, because it’s enclosed with a fence) and after about half an hour of nice playing, he decided the woods across the street looked inviting. He climbed over the fence before we could stop him, and ran into the trees.

My first thought was, “We lost the dog we rescued??? Oh, no!” but then I realized that since we’ve been asking EVERYone, “Do you recognize this dog?” and “Do you want to adopt a yellow lab?” that someone would probably figure out he was (temporarily) ours and bring him back.

But my husband plowed into the woods after him, and I walked the perimeter with Zora, with all three of us calling “Dog! Dog!”  Except for Zora because she was really saying “raurr-row!”

I found a culvert where there was some water, so I figured that would be a good place to wait for Dog… maybe he was thirsty. Then I heard a ruckus in the trees, and a couple seconds later, a doe ran out of the woods. Then, I heard SPLISH-SPLASH, and Dog came bounding out of the water, muddy and looking very pleased with himself. He and Zora had a happy reunion and we all went home.

One lesson from this? Microchip your dog. Seriously.

So to update on the financial/fundraising side… You know we spent $225 on everything for him (crate, good food, dog bowl, leash, collar, kong toy, and vet inspection/bath/flea and tick treatment). So far with raffle tickets and straight donations, we’ve raised about $180! Thanks to everyone who’s been helping out, either by making raffle ticket purchases or donations or helping to spread the word by posting in blogs and emailing friends and family!

Raffle drawings aren’t until Friday, so there is still time to make your contribution and possibly win something cool from my stash.

I was hoping to be able to help pay for some of his initial vet fees, neutering, and microchipping. I asked the veterinarian about prices for everything, and for the 2 rounds of shots he needs (since his immunization record is a mystery), neutering, and microchipping, the cost will be around $300. That doesn’t include heartworm testing, which he also needs, or the treatment if he has it (which runs $300-$500 for a dog this size). I am crossing my fingers that he doesn’t have heartworms!

So today, Dog, Zora, and Trouble had a playdate in the dog park. Who’s Trouble, you ask?

She’s the old, matronly, drooly black lab of a friend of mine. This particular friend has met Dog several times, and each time she babytalks to him and squinches his face and kisses him, then tells me if we can’t find someone to adopt him, that she will take him in.

Well, the guy who might adopt Dog (who is a friend of this friend of mine) is out of town all week, and I really needed to start getting things in order for my CDH (“What’s that?” you ask? Oh, more on that later) so my friend offered to watch him this week until the guy gets back from his training or wherever he is.

So this playdate was a trial run to see if Dog and Trouble could get along well. Trouble only had to “oompfh” at Dog a couple times before she realized that Dog was set in his usual role of laid-back second- or third-from-the-top dog. Then they were fine. My friend’s husband took Dog’s leash and walked around with him to see if Trouble would get jealous, and she just followed alongside them, not protesting at all.

So Dog went home with my friend’s family for a trial run in the house. Everything went well, and the dogs were both relaxing, eating treats, and coexisting peacefully. So my friend’s husband came back to get his crate, bowl, toy, and food.

But do you know what I think happened? I think my friend and her husband have already fallen in love with Dog, and I know their son has. I think that their friend (“the guy”) isn’t going to have a chance to adopt Dog because he’ll already be in the hearts of everyone in that house, including old Trouble.

I think our Dog has found a home, which is awesome! I couldn’t be more excited for him!  (I will take pictures of them all later.)

Also, since they live so close, this means that Dog and Zora can remain friends and have play dates in the dog park.