The Holiday Season

The holiday season...my favorite time of the year. So many wonderful things have happened this holiday season. I did some of the best bargain shopping ever, we found our Griswald Christmas tree, and we are fostering a wonderful sweet dog that we hope we can adopt.

Earlier this year I started helping out at Stray Rescue just walking the dogs a few times. I decided to take Ryan there the week before Thanksgiving, because the experience is so rewarding. There were so many wonderful dogs we had the pleasure of walking. We were fortunate enough to walk Carlos, although he was not a fan of Ryan. He just felt a little nervous with him, but I was so happy to get to spend a little time with Carlos. We were just about done with our visit when we headed down to the last crate and saw this dog in it by himself. He looked so sweet and happy to see us. Ryan at first didn't want to walk him, because he felt bad there wasn't a dog for us both to walk. I told him that was all the more reason to walk him.

So, Ryan went in the crate and put his leash on and we headed out. He was so excited and sweet. A few minutes in to his walk, I decided I would put my leash on him as well so that way we could walk him together. Suddenly, this dog, this stray, became this perfect little leash walker. And Ryan at that point started to fall in love with this 60 lb puppy. As we took him back to his crate I could tell Ryan was becoming attached to this dog.

I knew there was a chance, after a few years of research, learning about proper training techniques, and long discussions that this dog could soon come to live with us. As we stood there and spent a little time with him in his crate we were able to learn about his past and how Stray Rescue worked. His name is Crash. When Stray Rescue was out trying to rescue another dog, they happen to see this big beauty get hit by a car. Fortunately, they were able to get to him and save him. And that is how he got his name.

After a few days of talking about it, we decided to take Crash on a Rent-a-Pet for a weekend. And that following Saturday he was brought to our house. After only a few hours we realized how great of a dog Crash really was. He is so easy to teach and was looking for his pack leader. By the end of the day we had taught him new commands. But, he did have one drawback...he didn't seem to understand the cats were a part of the pack already and he has to share his possible new home with them. So we made the decision to foster him while we continue to work with him in hopes that he will soon learn to loves our cats and we can be one big happy family. We went in to this with the understanding that although we would love to keep Crash, either way we were helping him to find a forever home.