Yesterday or the two past days have been a bit of a whirlwind adventure, to say the least.
Backing up for a moment, we're supposed to get a call at some point during the week from someone associated with the dog rescue society, to set up a time to do a home visit, as part of the application process for Riley(Ollie). Talking with the coordinator later on Wednesday, she indicated that the person for the home visit couldn't do it. Was it possible for us to do a short video tour of our home and send it to her?
So, Lynn and I did this short couple-minute video and sent it off to her. Around 7:00pm on Wednesday, Lynn got a call back from the coordinator, telling us that we had been approved to adopt Ollie - who is now in the process of a name switcheroo to Riley.
The coordinator told Lynn, she would call back Thursday morning with further details regarding the adoption process.
Great then ...... thought ...... okay this will take a week or two - no big issue. In fact, we pondered that perhaps whoever had Ollie/Riley now might be able to keep him till the end of the month.
Wrong. Oh, so wrong!
When the coordinator called on Thursday morning, unfortunately, the lady who currently was looking after Riley had been diagnosed with lung cancer and couldn't look after him anymore. She would be starting treatment within the next day or so.
As such, we needed to get Riley yesterday(Thursday) afternoon.
Being woefully unprepared, given such short notice, we headed east to Truro to get Riley later Thursday afternoon, only after spending more dollars than we anticipated for dog-related "stuff." And of course, all of this happened in a torrential downpour. The remanents of Hurricane Beryl.
So, what we do know about him is that he is two years old, and his birthday is in September. He'll be three in a couple of months. He has had no training in appropriate manners from what we can tell. He seems to like Lynn but is very afraid of me at the moment.
He will not let you near his neck to remove his collar or leash. So, at the moment he wanders around with his light-weight leash dragging behind him. He is toy and food-possessive, so he'll growl if he thinks you're taking stuff away from him.
Our guess is he's had the run to do whatever he pleased, with little to no training and no consequences. Our work is definitely cut out for us.
Although, he did really great in the car, bringing him back yesterday. Loves a car ride. You'd think based on the car ride that we had actually two different animals. He was licking my arms; and Lynn's ear and was quite content to try to get up onto Lynn's lap to view the passing countryside.
He has been through a difficult time, so we know that it is going to take time for him to come around.
It has though completely altered our vacation and travel plans for the summer. It looks like we'll have to cancel planned trips to Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton at this point. There is the possibility that Lynn could fly back to see her father later in August, depending on how Riley comes around to only being with me.
Right now, I'm completely unsure of everything regarding him at the moment. As I said to Lynn "early" this morning, although I'm glad we have him, perhaps we should have waited or delayed the "looking for a dog process" till the end of August or the beginning of September.
But, that doesn't matter now.
He's with us and we'll have to simply keep plugging along with him. We are in for quite a ride I think. He is very smart and does pick up on stuff real quick - which is a good thing.
Being tired and in a "slight state of shock" still this morning likely isn't helping this unsettled feeling I have. But here we are nonetheless.
He's cute a fu@k asleep though.
--as always with love--
--- get outdoors; find inspiration; discover yourself ---
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