Oh My, What Have We Done.

It’s very quiet here in the house, our two dogs are asleep. Yes, I said two dogs. When Sebaka passed away, we were very lonely for a dog. We were very hesitant to get a puppy and raise the little critter, bringing it through the wonder years of terror and destruction. We had had such good luck with the first Golden Retriever Rescue dog; our first thought was to get another rescue dog. We contacted the lady that placed Baka with us and put our names in to see what might come up. Time went by and we did not get a call for a Golden that fit our criteria. We gave up and within a few months Kobi joined our family.

Three weeks ago we got a call. They had a male Golden that fit our needs and asked us if we were still interested. Linda has a soft spot for rescue dogs and she wanted to go out and see what he looked like. We set up an appointment and from that point forward we started the discussion about having a second dog.

Kobi has to stay home all day and lately he has been a bit of a rhododendron trimmer. Each night I come home and there is a little pile of branches in front of our door, along with Kobi and a block of wood. Our back yard is a complete mess right now and Kobi has taken it upon himself to prune every low lying branch in his domain. We think he is bored and is just keeping busy until we arrive home and he can go for a walk.

Our visit to see the new dog went fine. Gordon was found in Othello WA. He is somewhere between 1 1/2 and two years old and has a very nice Golden look. He is a bit underweight by about ten pounds. He has been mistreated somewhere along the line and is very cautious around humans. Once you get him to know you, he is very nice and really wants to please you. His tail wags constantly and he really loves to be touched. At the time of our first visit Gordon was getting over a bout of Kennel Cough and so we could not introduce him to Kobi until our dog got his booster shots and Gordon was out of quarantine.

Two weeks passed and all the vaccinations were updated. Friday night we picked Gordon up and brought him home to meet Kobi. On the drive home both Linda and I agreed that the first thing we needed to do was to take the dog to a pet shower facility and give him a good old fashion scrubbing. This was the worst smelling dog I have been around in a long time.

We went to a local coin operated dog shower and within about fifteen minutes we had a presentable dog, that both of us felt could go into our house. Gordon put up with us and actually did real well. He really does not know us and being submitted to a complete cleaning in the first two hours of the visit could have gone worse.

At the house we introduced the two dogs and I think things went very well. Of course they are posturing and seeing who is going to be the Alfa male of the dog family, but our evening was relatively calm. Kobi has so much energy we sometimes think Gordon might get mad, but he has been able to deal with our little nut quite admirably.

The dogs played and mouthed each other all evening. When we went to bed Kobi went into his crate and Gordon slept on a blanket at the foot of the bed. We all had a very good night’s sleep.
Linda got up early to go work out and let the dogs out to relieve themselves out side. She put them back in the bedroom where I was finishing my beauty sleep, and left for the club. Both dogs did well for about a half hour and then Gordon started to pace around. When Gordon paced, Kobi got restless and within fifteen minutes, I was up and our day began.

At this point we were still not convinced that this two dog road was one we wanted to go down. I spent my morning watching the dogs feel each other out. This went well, Kobi was rambunctious as ever, Gordon was trying to keep things together and put up with the pest.

Linda came home and we took the dogs for a walk in the field. Gordon has never been let off a lead since he was found, so we kept him on the long line and let Kobi romp. After about a half hour of walking the dogs, we looked across the field to the west and spotted Ollie and Rags charging down on us. Ollie and Rags are two dogs who live down the street from us; they belong to Eric and Jean and love to play with Kobi. It was wild for a bit as our dogs met their friends from down the street. Ollie is the same age as Kobi, but he is a lot bigger, a whole lot bigger! Ollie is a St. Bernard and is probably three time Kobi’s size. Rags is a Labradoodle that puts up with the two kids.

Next Joe arrived with his Boxer named Lucy. Lucy is very fast and a bit aggressive, but she played better then she usually does. The last to arrive was Riley and his master, Judy. Riley is a Golden and is about three years old. He looks and acts like he is about ten years old though. Riley loves all the other dogs but is a bit out of shape for kamikaze dog fun. We were able to keep everything under control as the owners talked and the dogs frolicked. One by one we split up, our pack of four heading home.

The dogs had a great workout in the field and by that time Linda and I had talked quite a bit about our situation and we decided to go ahead and keep Gordon. With this decision came a list of things we needed to do. First we had to get a second dog bed and crate. Then we needed to get some supplies from the pet store such as a Nylabone for our new dog and a choke collar. Then as we gathered the necessities, we made the decision to change the dog’s name. We have changed all our dog’s names and had no problems. Kobi was the youngest and easiest to train to the new name. Kobi’s original name was Jessie, not as bad as Sebaka’s, “Gus”, but we wanted something that was our name.

Right now I would like to take this opportunity to introduce everyone to Rio, our new Golden. Linda likes this name for several reasons, first it is a Spanish word and she has been studying to learn the language. Secondly it means River in Spanish. We love rivers and our lives have been enriched by the exploration of those bodies of water. We called up our rescue friends told them we wanted to adopt our new friend.

We shopped and purchased the items we needed and returned to the house. We entered the kitchen and looked out back to see our two beautiful Goldens’. To our surprise there were two black dogs standing at the sliding glass door. Well not exactly black, but the two clean dogs we left two hours ago were covered with water, grass, and mud. We cautiously enterer their domain and spotted why they were dirty. The must have spent the whole time we were gone playing “King of the Hill” and rolling in the muddy snow.

We gathered them up in the truck and drove directly to our pet shower facility and gave them both a rinsing. Rio did not do as well during this cleaning, he was a bit agitated, but we were able to get him cleaned up.

Returning home we let the dogs into the house, gave Rio his dog bed and did a little grooming on both dogs. This was at about 4:00 PM and both dogs walked directly to a dog bed and went to sleep; Kobi on Rio’s bed, Rio on Kobi’s bed. I am working on this blog entry now and it is 7:00 PM, they both have not moved.