Seeing Double

As some of you might know, one of my dearest companions, Cheyenne (an American Eskimo) passed away last year. We got a new dog named Champ from the local shelter in December. Despite our new addition, I have been checking out the Aurora Animal Shelter page every so often. Last month I saw they had an American Eskimo. I thought aw, how cute and figured he would be adopted soon. (Can you see where this is going??) Fast forward to last week, when I checked the page again. There was the American Eskimo, still at the shelter. I had an uncontrollable urge to stop by the shelter and see what was wrong with this dog since he was still there.

At the shelter, I found him cowering in cage 5, which happens to be my luck number. I spent a little time talking to him and finally he slinked up to me and let me pet him. He smiled the way this breed smiles and looked at me with those big brown eyes. I felt the heartstrings pull. I went to the front desk and asked them what the story was on this dog. He was a stray. His time was almost up at the shelter. He hated people - barked and nipped. This wasn't the dog that I saw.

I went home and told Mark about him and Mark agreed to visit. We went back and asked to take him into a visiting room. The worker went into the cage to get the dog and the dog freaked out. He was cowering and barking and wanted nothing to do with the leash. Knowing the breed, I didn't see a mean, anger dog but rather a scared, frightened one. We brought him in the room and he was a sweetie. Morgan was with us. When we visited other dogs before finding Champ, she would feel uncomfortable around some of them. She was very comfortable with this dog.

We asked if we could bring Champ to visit before we made a final decision. Their policy is to not let other dogs visit, but they felt with this "troubled" dog they would make an exception. They did not expect it to go well. They were proved wrong once again. The new dog crawled under Champ. They did not fight. He wanted to play.That was it. I was sold.

This was on Saturday. He was unaltered so we had to leave him there until Wednesday, the first time they could get him in for surgery. I visited him while we waited, taking him on walks at lunch. I had no problems getting his leash on him like the worker did.

We finally got to bring him home yesterday. His name is Tonka.

He is a little timid yet, but is warming up. Him and Champ have been chasing each other in the yard for hours. They are still trying to figure out who is dominate, but they are not biting or barking - merely wrestling around. I have a feeling that Tonka might win. Champ is pretty laid back. Either way, they are both really happy together and are going to be great friends.

We definitely made the right decision.