I, Once Again, Am Not Dead

It’s been a couple of months. I mean, not just “Hey, it’s been a while; how’re you doing\?” sense, but in a “Wow! Things have been pretty rough!” kind of sense

So. In mid-July I ended up in a situation where the only ethical thing I could do was take Mila in on a permanent basis. You might remember Mila, the dog that I had on a part-time basis?

Her original mom couldn’t keep her, and I didn’t know what my dad would do if I took her in, so her original mom rehomed her. That new home didn’t work out, since in July, I get a phone call at work saying, “Your dog is here at the Humane Society.”

You see, when I had her spayed and chipped, they put my contact info on the chip. I didn’t, at that point, know how to take my info off of the chip, so when she ran away from/was dumped by her second person, I became her mom sort of by default.

I mean, I love her to death. She’s my bestest buddy. **However** my dad also forbade me to ever get another dog or cat and he said he’d move out if I did. I cannot afford this house without his financial assistance, and so in my mind, at the time it boiled down to her or my home.

So I told my dad about my info being on her chip and went to the Humane Society to get her. She had no sense of personal space and came back to me pretty reactive, so I cannot in good conscience rehome her at the moment.

My goal is to get her well trained enough to pass the canine good citizen test. Then, no matter what happens, we’ll be good. If my dad eventually puts his foot down and says she has to go, it should be easy to find a new home for her. Or even a fostering situation.

The items are accepting a friendly stranger (still working on that one), Sitting politely for petting (ditto), whether the dog will let someone other than the owner to groom her (I might be able to game this one by having her original mom be the other person?), loose leash walking (sometimes okay, mostly not), walking through a crowd (we go to the Riverwalk often, so she’s good with this one), sit and stay (meh . . . ), coming when called (she’s good with this one), reaction to another dog (erm. . . ), reaction to distractions (ditto), and supervised separation from the owner (I would walk out of sight of the dog while someone else holds her leash).

We’ve got a lot of work to do.