Old Dog, New Tricks
A year and a half ago I convinced my husband to let me get a puppy. He was traveling nonstop for work so I was a somewhat newlywed home alone for a few weeks out of every month. Which shouldn't have been a big deal except that I was going from a college house with roommates constantly filtering in and out throughout the day to a house with just my husband and him being gone the majority of the time. I thought a puppy would give me some company and force me to focus my energy elsewhere while Chris was gone. On a Wednesday Chris gave me the green light to start looking for puppies. On Thursday I came across an Australian Shepherd named Emmie online. On Friday she was in the back seat of our truck coming home with us. But our new Aussie was no puppy. Our new Aussie was six years old.
From day one she was the absolute opposite of everything that I was looking for in a dog. For years I had wanted a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd puppy. She was a Red Merle Australian Shepherd full grown dog. I wanted an Aussie with perfectly symmetrical show worthy markings. She was an Aussie whose markings did not come anywhere close to that. She reminds me a lot of the scene in Batman where Harvey Dent first reveals his burned face and he looks like a completely different person depending on which angle you are looking at him from. I wanted an Aussie that would grow to be tall and graceful and wildly athletic. She was an Aussie that was short and stocky and a little thicker than most that bumped into walls and knocked over all the things. But when I saw her I just knew. There was no decision to be made. There was no conversation to be had. She was coming home with us.
We paid a hefty adoption fee for what a lot of people would consider a senior dog, and I think the hilarious thing about that is that they should have probably paid us double what we paid them just to take her off of their hands. But we didn't know that at the time.
There were perks to adopting an adult dog for sure. She came fully potty trained. She could sit. She could shake. She could do the cutest balancing act on her back feet. Plus when people asked I got to say, "Oh we rescued her from a shelter." Because apparently that made me better than the people who buy from responsible breeders. Within our first week of having Emmie, we wished that we had bought a puppy from a breeder no less than one hundred times.
The rescue that we got Emmie from told us that she was "definitely the alpha female." As a fellow alpha female, I didn't really see a problem with that. In fact, they made it sound rather endearing.
When we signed our ridiculously in depth adoption agreement, we had to sign a box promising that we wouldn't use her for "fighting purposes." We laughed at the time because Australian Shepherds don't exactly have a rep for fighting and people don't scurry away from them on the street like they do with other stereotyped breeds. But y'all, our girl could fight.
One Sunday after church we went to the dog park with our Mill City small group. We figured if she was going to embarrass us it might as well be in front of people who we could laugh about it with. It was our first time taking Emmie anywhere with other dogs so we left her on her leash. She pinned each and every one of our friend's dogs to the ground if they even breathed the air within ten feet of her. It was mortifying.
I remember Chris finding me in bed that night sobbing as silently as I could into my pillow. We were still less than a year into our marriage so my random cry sessions still freaked him out big time. He asked me what was wrong and he somehow managed to understand that I was asking him if he was going to get rid of Emmie. And that day I can remember falling even more in love with him because he pulled me into his arms and said, "Of course not. We made a commitment to her. She needs us."
I literally laugh out loud (actual literally, not just white girl literally) every single time I see someone on Facebook or Instagram with the caption, "Who rescued who?" underneath their picture of them and their shelter dog. I believe that a dog can come into a person's life and immediately change it for the better, but it was no where near immediately with our sweet girl. I'll tell you what, Emmie did not rescue us - she challenged us. She frustrated us. She disappointed us. And quite honestly, she embarrassed us. But eventually, way down the road, she changed us.
It was a rough first few months. Actually just the first year completely was tough. All of the awesome things about owning a dog were not things for us at first. Going for walks or casually hanging out at the dog park were not glamorous affairs. It was hard. So very hard. My husband handled it with poise and patience. I handled it with crippling anxiety and all of the wine.
There were times of incredible frustration where I would think to myself, "How can she only be 7? How can we possibly have at least 5 more years with her?" What a terrible thing to think, huh? I no longer think that way. In fact the other night I came across the typical lifespan for an Aussie and I was brought to tears. Now I catch myself asking, "How can she already be 7? How could I have missed that much of her life and have so few years left with her?"
Emmie has now been part of our family for 550 days. 550 days later and our sweet Auss no longer pins her furry friends to the ground and I don't go home and sob into my pillow after a trip to the dog park.
Fifteen days ago, we brought home the dream dog. I call her that because she is my very own little Blue Merle Aussie with show worthy markings. We named her Josie. And we even got her from a breeder (gasp). In all seriousness, anybody looking for a responsible Standard Australian Shepherd breeder let me know because this gal is great. But even though she is the Aussie that I always dreamed of, when we brought her home I fell even more in love with our Emmie girl.
If Jojo isn't sleeping, she is hanging all over Emmie with her disturbingly sharp puppy teeth. And Emmie lets her.
If we had brought Jojo home a year ago, Emmie may have killed her (that's not a joke). But Emmie has taken her in and loves her more than we could have ever even begun to hope for. The terrible Australian Shepherd from the shelter in Arvada actually won us over to the point that we had to have another one.
If anybody was wondering, it takes approximately 550 days to teach an old dog new tricks.
From day one she was the absolute opposite of everything that I was looking for in a dog. For years I had wanted a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd puppy. She was a Red Merle Australian Shepherd full grown dog. I wanted an Aussie with perfectly symmetrical show worthy markings. She was an Aussie whose markings did not come anywhere close to that. She reminds me a lot of the scene in Batman where Harvey Dent first reveals his burned face and he looks like a completely different person depending on which angle you are looking at him from. I wanted an Aussie that would grow to be tall and graceful and wildly athletic. She was an Aussie that was short and stocky and a little thicker than most that bumped into walls and knocked over all the things. But when I saw her I just knew. There was no decision to be made. There was no conversation to be had. She was coming home with us.
We paid a hefty adoption fee for what a lot of people would consider a senior dog, and I think the hilarious thing about that is that they should have probably paid us double what we paid them just to take her off of their hands. But we didn't know that at the time.
There were perks to adopting an adult dog for sure. She came fully potty trained. She could sit. She could shake. She could do the cutest balancing act on her back feet. Plus when people asked I got to say, "Oh we rescued her from a shelter." Because apparently that made me better than the people who buy from responsible breeders. Within our first week of having Emmie, we wished that we had bought a puppy from a breeder no less than one hundred times.
The rescue that we got Emmie from told us that she was "definitely the alpha female." As a fellow alpha female, I didn't really see a problem with that. In fact, they made it sound rather endearing.
When we signed our ridiculously in depth adoption agreement, we had to sign a box promising that we wouldn't use her for "fighting purposes." We laughed at the time because Australian Shepherds don't exactly have a rep for fighting and people don't scurry away from them on the street like they do with other stereotyped breeds. But y'all, our girl could fight.
One Sunday after church we went to the dog park with our Mill City small group. We figured if she was going to embarrass us it might as well be in front of people who we could laugh about it with. It was our first time taking Emmie anywhere with other dogs so we left her on her leash. She pinned each and every one of our friend's dogs to the ground if they even breathed the air within ten feet of her. It was mortifying.
I remember Chris finding me in bed that night sobbing as silently as I could into my pillow. We were still less than a year into our marriage so my random cry sessions still freaked him out big time. He asked me what was wrong and he somehow managed to understand that I was asking him if he was going to get rid of Emmie. And that day I can remember falling even more in love with him because he pulled me into his arms and said, "Of course not. We made a commitment to her. She needs us."
I literally laugh out loud (actual literally, not just white girl literally) every single time I see someone on Facebook or Instagram with the caption, "Who rescued who?" underneath their picture of them and their shelter dog. I believe that a dog can come into a person's life and immediately change it for the better, but it was no where near immediately with our sweet girl. I'll tell you what, Emmie did not rescue us - she challenged us. She frustrated us. She disappointed us. And quite honestly, she embarrassed us. But eventually, way down the road, she changed us.
It was a rough first few months. Actually just the first year completely was tough. All of the awesome things about owning a dog were not things for us at first. Going for walks or casually hanging out at the dog park were not glamorous affairs. It was hard. So very hard. My husband handled it with poise and patience. I handled it with crippling anxiety and all of the wine.
There were times of incredible frustration where I would think to myself, "How can she only be 7? How can we possibly have at least 5 more years with her?" What a terrible thing to think, huh? I no longer think that way. In fact the other night I came across the typical lifespan for an Aussie and I was brought to tears. Now I catch myself asking, "How can she already be 7? How could I have missed that much of her life and have so few years left with her?"
Emmie has now been part of our family for 550 days. 550 days later and our sweet Auss no longer pins her furry friends to the ground and I don't go home and sob into my pillow after a trip to the dog park.
Fifteen days ago, we brought home the dream dog. I call her that because she is my very own little Blue Merle Aussie with show worthy markings. We named her Josie. And we even got her from a breeder (gasp). In all seriousness, anybody looking for a responsible Standard Australian Shepherd breeder let me know because this gal is great. But even though she is the Aussie that I always dreamed of, when we brought her home I fell even more in love with our Emmie girl.
If Jojo isn't sleeping, she is hanging all over Emmie with her disturbingly sharp puppy teeth. And Emmie lets her.
If we had brought Jojo home a year ago, Emmie may have killed her (that's not a joke). But Emmie has taken her in and loves her more than we could have ever even begun to hope for. The terrible Australian Shepherd from the shelter in Arvada actually won us over to the point that we had to have another one.
If anybody was wondering, it takes approximately 550 days to teach an old dog new tricks.
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