CT Yankee in the Deep South: Puppy Power

As promised, I give you Claire! So last Sunday, we adopted a puppy! She is about 10 months old and super adorable, as you can see from the pictures. We think she is part golden retriever, and she is part chow, which we know from her black tongue. We think she might also be part lab, but she is also only 30 pounds so she has some smaller dog in her too. I think she might be part English shepherd because she looks the part and she tries to herd us when we go walking. She always stays by our side and doesn’t try wandering off, which is great, but she also likes to circle us and gets under foot. We found her in the Dothan classifieds. A couple of months ago she was brought to the animal hospital because she was hit by a car. She had broken her leg and needed pins put into her pelvis. We also think that she was mistreated in her previous home because she was really shy around people. Because she needed more care than could be given at the hospital, one of the volunteers took her home to foster her. Four months later, trying to find a home, we found Claire, or rather, Claire found us. We decided to keep the name her foster family gave her after much discussion, little agreement, and finally adorable nicknames: My little chocolate eclaire, and clairebear. My Clairebear hobbles all over our living room as she is learning to put more and more weight down on her bad leg. She had muscle atrophy in that leg from disuse as she was going through all of the surgical procedures and recuperation, but we have seen so many strides on so many fronts.

On the way home from her foster family, she was drooling all over the backseat of our car. My husband was driving and I was petting her and singing to her and trying to calm her down but she was shaking. Of course my husband had to comment that drool can be a precursor to puke, so I was super grateful that I was the one in the back seat with the carsick scared puppy and not safe in the front seat driving not like a maniac of course. She was also really afraid of people. She would shake and had to be coaxed into coming into a room with strangers. Her foster family had other dogs, and her foster mother told us that she would bond to us quicker because she couldn’t bond to dogs in our apartment, but I am amazed at how true that has been and how great she has become around people. We brought her to a friend’s house this past Saturday night, so basically a week since we got her, and there were 4 couples. She was a little hesitant to come inside, and proceeded to pee all over their kitchen floor, but she warmed right up. She actually went up to one of our friends whom she had never met before without being introduced, and I have never seen her do that before. She also made friends with Ky, the giant husky mix with whom we brought her to socialize. She even became so comfortable as to steal a couple of his toys, and he is a good 50 pounds bigger than she is.

So from shy puppy who wouldn’t leave her kennel to crazy dog that runs/hobbles around our apartment wanting to play, she is adorable. She was even chasing her tail last night. She also jumps like a cricket when she gets excited. She sheds like it is her job, but we got a FURMINATOR and I brush her every day so that has kept the shedding to as much of a minimum as possible. I am amazed that something with such a tacky name works so well, but I am glad that it does. She is dark brown and all of our rugs are cream colored. It is also a good thing I am not allergic to dogs, and thank goodness my father in law is an allergist who told me so, after giving me the test as his kitchen table… awesome I hate needles but now we have a puppy so it is ok.

She is just really too cute.