Hi Tammy, This is long overdue... we adopted Edison, now named Cooper, from you in July and I wanted to let you know how he's been doing. I also wanted to pass along some photos which is what has taken me so long. I'm not all that skilled at formatting the pictures in e-mails. I've also discovered that it's hard to take good pictures of black dogs (all our other dogs were lighter colors!) unless you have just the right light
. Cooper has been doing great and we love having him as part of the family. He's come out of his shell so much and actually seemed to settle in at our house fast. He's still somewhat submissive when meeting new dogs and sometimes with people who are big, loud and wild (like my 16 year old sons friends!). but for the most part he got over the submissive peeing almost immediately, and only reverts back to that occasionally. He's met lots of dog friends and enjoys playing whenever he gets the chance. He's been great in our yard hanging around with us whenever we're outside and stays right with us when we walk through our woods. He's actually a bit timid about venturing too far from us when we're hiking which is actually a good thing.
He went on his first vacation in August to Vermont where he had lots of dogs to play with in the house where we stayed and had a chance to swim in a pond, which wasn't his favorite thing....he's a bit of a weenie about the water. We've found that too at the beach when we take him there but he loves running down the beach chasing sticks and balls so it's still fun for him. He's become especially good buddies with one of our cats and they actually chase each other in the yard (yes the cat chases him too!).
He's done fine with our chickens and only occasionally gives into his urge to chase them, but only does it in fun and doesn't try to hurt them. My daughter and I have been taking him to a basic manners class at a local training/ doggie daycare place one evening a week for the past month and he's doing very well... he was actually doing well even before going but this is reinforcing it all and he gets to make even more friends. He's quite a chewer so he has lots of chew toys to try to distract him from things he shouldn't be chewing... I think that's going to take a while!
So, you can see he's been a busy guy since coming to live with us and we're just having a great time with him. We really appreciate all you did for him in getting him into the animal hospital, getting him healthier and then allowing us to adopt him. He's such a sweetie and we're really glad to have him!
Thanks again for all your hard work, Robin