First Impressions

Cane was adopted Oct 6th, 2009. He got noticed by leaning against the kennel gate wanting to be touched. He looked up with striking blue eyes and a friendly face. His pale white fur was damp and slightly stained. His quiet demeanor earned a walk to the play pen. There were balls and toys to investigate but it wasn’t clear at the time why he spent so much time studying the fence‘s design.

The shelter staff said it was his third visit and the previous owners would not come to claim him. He was originally picked up as a stray and adopted, but he was an escape artist and couldn’t be contained by his second family, or third. So there he was, performing the same act that was sure to get him adopted again. And it worked.

The first order of business was a good bath. That white fur cleaned up nice and he smelled like a new dog. Cane’s exact age is unknown but the vet and the shelter estimate that he is between 1.5 to two years old. Not exactly a puppy, but not a mellow adult dog like his new parents’ previous “kids”.

He has a hard act to follow. His new family were proud parents of a shar-pei mix for 14+ years and her “little” sister, a Shepherd mix for 12 years. They both succumbed to health issues in the past year. Although very experienced with dogs, it was soon to be seen why so many Husky websites say “do your research first”.

Pokey, the shar-pei was not exactly an active dog. She could be compared to the Yellow Dog from the movie Funny Farm. If a door or gate was left open, she would lay there and wait for someone to come step over her, that is if she even noticed it was open. She knew where the food came from and wasn’t going far from it.

Lacey, the Shepherd was more like Lassie. She was the active one, but knew exactly what “come” meant and would appear in a few seconds if called. She exemplified the word trust and would sit in the garage with her dad for hours and watch the world go by.
They complimented each other perfectly and will be in the hearts of everyone they met forever. Oh yes, Cane has big shoes to fill.

He began his first night by jumping on the bed every hour or so to see if anyone else was awake. Time to go outside and take care of business? No, he just likes to lie in the grass and smell all the new smells. Drag back inside and repeat hourly until alarm sounds.

After a night of minimal sleep, the patience level is pushed even farther down when he comes back inside after the morning walk and leaves a “gift” on the office floor. What were they feeding this dog? Good thing for carpet shampooers. Fortunately, Auntie B is visiting for a week and can watch him during the day.

Too bad she had to go to the store. Cane decided to explore everything in the house. Chairs were overturned, most items on tables were now on the floor and every door in the place was open. Round doorknobs were to be added to the “to-do” list to replace the lever style knobs.

It was assumed that a six foot fence would be sufficient for Cane’s back yard realm. It didn’t really matter once he saw one human operate the gate latch. He immediately went to work on the latches and figured out how to flip them up, and since the gates swing outward, he found freedom. All the humans followed him through the bushes and tried to block his path between the houses, but Huskies are fast and Cane is no exception. Fortunately, there was a young girl a few houses away playing with a soccer ball that looked very interesting. As he stopped to investigate how tasty a soccer ball could be, the girl grabbed his collar and the chasse was over. “Never chase a husky” was one of the many lessons to be learned by these new humans.