January 16, 2007

• You know, I’ve always wanted an Old English Sheepdog, ever since I’ve seen how big and fluffy and huggable they can be. Today, I went to my county’s animal shelter, because they had a young, male, white furry Old English Sheepdog (“OES) in their custody. It was sharing a kennel with a red Chow Chow mix; who was also really cute looking and very energetic. Since the Chow mix wanted all my attention, he pretty much forced the OES to go in the corner, not knowing who I was really there for. Poor Chow mix. At first the OES did not want to get out of the cage because he was really scared. I’d like to think it’s not necessarily because of me, but he would rather just lie down in a corner. Timid and mellow, not too hyper, just the kind of dog I want. It took two animal shelter employees to get him out of the cage, and then I spent a little bit of secluded time with the OES. After about five minutes, knowing that he really is a non-aggressive dog, I decided I wanted to keep him. So yup, I got myself another dog! After a long line and half an hour, in what was surprisingly a very busy animal shelter, I was able to take him. He was very hesitant in jumping in my car though, so I had to pick him up. He liked the car ride though, and was relaxed all the way home, not making a fuss.

  

  When I brought him home, my current dog was excited to meet him. I left the OES in the yard before I would let him in the house, because he REALLY needs a bath first. I introduced my current dog to him, and the Old English Sheepdog all of a sudden livened up, and was acting very friendly with my current dog. Each one of them was trying to establish dominance though, but my current dog thinks she’s a princess, so she was having none of that. They seem to get along well enough, except I think my current dog demands to be the dominant one. Hopefully, I won’t have an issue with them together.

  This Old English Sheepdog actually had a collar on him when they found him, so he may have ran away, or his previous owner abandoned him, or they haven’t tried hard enough to find him. He was picked up by the shelter on January 6, so he was fair game to the public for adoption as of the 13th. I’ve got to say that it was really hard walking through the shelter seeing all these dogs that want to be adopted. I would just want to get all of them if I could, but that’s obviously impossible. At least I was able to rescue this Old English Sheepdog, and added a new member to my family as well.

  * update 1/20 * After a couple of days and different opinions from other dog lovers, pet groomers, and the vet, I have to say that the Baldwin Park Animal Shelter made a mistake in saying that my new dog is a purebred Old English Sheepdog. In actually, he is in fact a mix, that is most likely a soft-coated wheaton terrier mixed with quite possibly an old english sheepdog. So there you go folks, I’m just going to start saying that he is just an “Old English Sheepdog Wheaton Terrier mix.”

  • 9:31 pm
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