Our newest addition.
I would like you guys to meet Chewie. She is the newest addition to our household.
We adopted her on Saturday afternoon from the local SPCA.
We’ve been thinking about getting another dog for a while now. As you know dear reader, Pappy passed in November of last year. We wanted to wait a while for obvious reasons, but lately the time has just seemed right. I was involved in a play for quite a few months but it closed a couple of weeks ago and a castmate of mine from that play works at the SPCA so she kept sending me pictures. I would check out the website quite often. In fact, in a funny twist of fate we almost adopted a dog that a co-worker of mine ended up adopting. It was meant to be that we didn’t because those two are just like peas in a pod.
I’m not sure why, but this weekend just felt right. We perused the website and picked out three dogs we wanted to see. The first was a dog named princess. She was a terrier/chihuahua mix. We got there as soon as they opened on Saturday and while Rob walked the length of the dog kennels, I made a bee line for Princess and headed straight into her “condo”.
They board the dogs two to a “condo” so and as I walked in, an attendant was cuddling Princess’ roommate Pop Tart. She was a funny looking fuzzy little thing but I paid her no mind. I headed straight for Princess and scooped her up. She was very affectionate but a little high strung. I put her down and said hello to the attendant. He told me that Pop Tart was the most relaxed dog he had ever seen. I reached down and petted her and was shocked at how soft her fur was. She looked like she would be a wire haired, but she was smooth as silk.
Rob came in and joined us and we both became very focused on Pop Tart, petting her and asking questions. Eventually my castmate Leia showed up and by that time we had already decided. We wanted Pop Tart.
We took her outside and walked around with her a bit. Because we have another dog we are required to interact them together and see if it is a good fit, so Rob headed out to our car to get Shilo, while a dog behaviorist came at got me and Pop Tart.
We interacted them in a part of the facility that was very loud and Pop Tart was cowering and basically shutting down. The behaviorist asked us to go to more quiet location and when we got there the dog was much more at ease. We all talked for a while and watched the dogs, who were very indifferent to each other before deciding to proceed with the paperwork.
Long story short, we renamed her Chewie because of her resemblance to Chewbacca and took her home.
She was very timid the first day but seemed kind of okay. By the second day she wasn’t eating and didn’t move from the couch. The third day she still hadn’t eaten and by the fourth day I was frantic. I scoured the internet and everything pointed to her just being scared and stressed out. One website said to boil up some chicken and try that.
So last night I stopped at the market on the way home and bought one lonely chicken breast. I brought it home and boiled it. I put some calming essential oil in my diffuser and took the chicken off the stove to cool.
The smell of the chicken hit the air and I could tell Chewie was interested. I pulled off a little piece and made sure it was cool enough before bringing it over to her. She sniffed it, put it in her mouth and spit it back out. I placed it next to her mouth where she was laying on the couch and stepped away. She quickly scarfed it up.
My heart was dancing with joy as I pulled a couple more pinches of chicken off and brought them back over, sharing with Shilo as well. Chewie ate them with no hesitation and jumped off the couch to follow me back into the kitchen when I went to get more.
I put some shreds in her bowl and she ate them up with vigor. I put some more in her bowl and added a little kibble. She quickly ate around the kibble and looked at me for more chicken.
Oh well, you can’t win ’em all. 🙂
This morning my husband said she ate kibble with no issue and again tonight. She also has much more pep in her step and is much more social with us.
She is a very sweet girl and I’m so excited to have her in our family.
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