New Tenant

We are currently TEMPORARILY housing a new tenant at la Casa de los Copelands.  Meet Storm:

Storm entered our lives on Wednesday morning, June 9, 2010.  We had left our garage door open overnight, unintentionally of course, and there was a pretty big thunderstorm all night.  When I woke up in the morning to take Thor for a walk in the rain, Storm was hanging out in the garage hiding from the thunder and lightening.  I fell in love with him immediately.  I let Thor and Storm play for a little bit, and then fed them both.

We left Storm in our garage for the day.  We have good ventilation in the garage and because of the weather it was not going to get very hot.  I spent sometime at work on Wednesday calling vets in the area to see if anyone had reported a missing dog, posted a "found" ad on craigslist and on petfinders.com, and called a couple of no-kill shelters to put Storm on their waiting lists.  I didn't want to have the shelter or animal control pick him up because I felt I could be more successful in finding his home, or a home for him.   We are pretty sure he had a home at one time, but is a stray now.   He will sit and stay on command, and is pretty good with the words "no" and "come".

When we returned from work in the evening, Dave opened the garage door and Storm took off, just bolted out of the garage and ran away.  It was a pretty funny joke because my mom was kidding that I was imprisoning him against his will.  Thor and I took a walk around the neighborhood looking for him, but nothing.  No Storm Thursday morning, but low and behold, Storm returned this morning.

Silly silly silly us, we left the garage open, again.  Thor and I walked into the garage and were happily greeted by Storm.  We took our walk like normal, and Storm followed us the whole way.   So I got back to the house, fed & watered both dogs, and talked it over with Dave.  

We decided to put Storm in the backyard for the day and schedule a vet appointment for him in the morning to see what his health is like.  Dave seems to think the dog has mange, I sort of agree except I really don't know what mange looks like.  He has splotchy patterns of hair on his upper body, but there isn't any exposed skin or scratching.  If he does it's the very early stages and we should know tomorrow.  I do know that mange is easily cured if treated.  Hopefully he doesn't have it.  Maybe he is just older than he looks?  Or that is just his natural hair pattern?  I think he looks good, other than a tad skinny.  He can't weigh more than 50lbs.  He's tiny compared to our big boy, Thor.

So Dave put Storm in the backyard, with some water, and with the dog igloo from my father-in-law that we have been keeping in the garage.  Storm seemed to settle in quite nicely, but Thor was going crazy.  Thor is having a hard time not humping Storm right now.  On our walk he was fine because he was on the leash and I was able to control him.  Once I took him off the leash he would immediately try and mount poor Storm.  I tried to explain the birds and the bees, and that Storm is a boy dog, but Thor could not control his emotions. 

We split the two dogs up because of Thor's, um, issues.

Thor cried and cried, too. 

Look at that face!!!  (Remember, he is looking for a forever home!)

I think that Dave is afraid that I will want to keep him if he is around too long.  I really think he has the potential to be a wonderful pet, and I think that he deserves a good home.  However, I'm not prepared for another dog yet; especially with a baby on the way. 

It is already hard and expensive to board our one dog if we ever want to go out of town, or hard to manage when we take Thor with us to our family's houses.  I would really like to find him a good home.  I think he will make a family very happy if they can open their home to him.  We will take care of him as long as we can, and pending a relatively clean bill of healthy, and we will just go from there.  Kinda like foster parents.

So, on that note, if anyone knows of a family in the Central Texas area that would consider adopting this sweet sweet dog, let me know!!! Also, please spread the word if you can. 

Please comment here, shoot me a message on Facebook, or email me at amcopeland2010@yahoo.com