Dogs and Puppies

I have always been an animal person. Since childhood I always loved animals, and had a bond with them. My step dad was a hunter and loved taking me out into the wild. I didn’t really dig the hunting a lot. I enjoyed every part except the part where I had to kill something. If someone else did it and I just had to deal with the aftermath, then I would be fine, but I just couldn’t kill an animal.

If I hit a butterfly with my car on the freeway, I become sad. If I see an injured animal I have to do something. If they are going to die and I need to kill them so they don’t suffer. I suffer for weeks. My  mom loved to tell stories of me on the boundary waters calling down eagles and my 21 ducklings that would come to see me every day, as well as the “doggies” (wolves) I tried to convince to come into our cabin.

My First Dog Wolfie and I

I only ever had one dog in my life, and I was very young, he was a husky/wild wolf mix. We got him as a puppy and he grew as I did. He followed me everywhere, even at his young puppy age. We only had him a few years before he was put down. I was told he must have gotten lost in the woods.




 While I only ever had 1 dog myself, my aunt made up for it and had a number of dogs throughout my life growing up. A Great Dane once, Doberman once, and most memorably a German Shepherd named Bo. He didn’t really listen to anyone but me, and I rarely saw him, but he was my buddy. Until these last few years "Bo-dog" was my favorite dog ever.

Bo-Dog

After I had grown up my mom was with a gentleman who had an older dog name Ozzie, I think he was a Burmese Mountain Dog, German Shepherd mix with some other breeds. He was also a bigger dog. He and I became great pals, after he passed away, they accidentally ran across a little tiny terrier and adopted it. That little dog wouldn’t play with anyone. However my mom always knew when I was coming to visit, because that little dog would run and grab his toy and run to the door 10 minutes before I showed up. Somehow he knew I was coming. Until him, I was always of the mind that little scrappy dogs like that were annoying, but this little guy was so cute and such a good little dog it broke my heart when I heard they gave him away.

Fast forward to a few years ago. I had been dating my wife for almost a year when her roommate had bought a house. She always wanted her own dog and had said previously that she would get a dog if Kari ever got a house. We searched and searched through many organizations, shelters, and adoption groups and she really liked Wags and Whiskers. We searched and Holly had her heart set on this little golden retriever puppy. There was only one or two other dogs that she was kind of interested in.  When she emailed that she wanted to meet the puppy she was very sad to hear that the puppy had found an adopter already. I looked at the website and I pointed out another dog that she had looked at before. She said that the description made the dog sound like a lazy dog that wasn’t active at all. She wanted a dog that would go for walks, and play and be active. Adult dogs often do not get adopted, but I looked at the picture and said, “you should give him the benefit of the doubt.” She said ok, and we went to look at him. He came out and said hello, and was very laid back. It took me less than a minute to get him active and playing and running around the yard.

Me and Bear hiking in Duluth

We now own Bear, who is the best dog I have ever known. I said, if we every get another dog, I wanted it to be just like Mr. Bear. He seems to be the bar that many of our friends set for themselves and their dogs they have gotten or want. Even my friend Adam has said that his son who is around dogs often, his sons grandmother has a dog sled team… he is afraid of dogs…. Except our dog. He loves our dog. I always thought him just a normal sized dog, but I was quickly informed he was a large dog. How was I to know, to me normal was Great Danes and German Shepherds. As we had him I realized that I understood how to train dogs. I had taught other peoples dogs to do things like sit and shake and lay down. Suddenly I was researching teaching dogs, training dogs, dog psychology, and good and bad food for dogs. I was watching videos, tv shows, discovery videos all about dogs. Soon I was pretty good at guessing a lot of dog breeds. Bear’s dog breed we figure is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retreiver mixed with German Shepherd. He has mostly Nova Scotia retriever mentality.

(back to front) Luna - Neville

After our experience with Bear and once we got our own house, we decided to foster for Wags and Whiskers. Our first fosters were two puppies named Luna and Neville. Within three weeks of having them they knew sit, lay down, stay, in the house, and more. We went to two adoption events with them, and their littermates would be there, and everyone was shocked to see how smart, well behaved, and trained our pups were compared to their littermates. It was very rewarding for me to have that kind of response. Luna had nearly 22 applications within her first week of being available.

Bear and Luna

Luna was a very aggressive player and over energetic puppy and we thought they both were but later we learned she would get Neville riled up. It was very hard to let them go, because Bear loved them so much, and we were attached to them as well. It was sad when Luna left, but the week she left my wife was gone that entire weekend. I was home alone with Neville and his real personality came out and he became very attached to me and Bear. To this day I wished we would have kept him, because he was very well behaved and really affectionate. However, he was also adopted, and  I had to leave the room when Neville left because I had become so attached to him. I had to agree that all other fosters we got, had to be adults, because I didn’t want to go through that again.

Bear and Neville

The first week after they left Bear wandered the house looking for them and whining and whimpering., which continued to break our hearts. After taking some time though he was over them being gone, and we decided to get Calypso. Calypso was an adult dog who was very adorable. She was also very affectionate. Actually, she was too affectionate, she literally needed to be laying on top of you completely to be somewhat satisfied. For a 60lb dog, that was difficult.

Calypso was completely untrained. The longer we had her, the more things we started to realize and assume about her past. She had absolutely no recall, and loved to chase anything that moved. So we assume that she was outdoors a lot, likely in a fenced in yard. Not on a leash because she couldn’t understand anything about being on a leash, either for walks or just being on the yard. She also was likely hit or abused by a male. She flinched and cowered at any fast movement or action by males. About the only thing that kept her from being a wild dog, was she didn’t climb or jump on tables or counters, and she really liked to snuggle and cuddle with anyone who would give her attention.

Calypso looking out the window from across the room.

By the time she was adopted, she would sleep in her kennel on her own, would kennel up by command on her own, could walk on a leash without a gentle leader, she could sit, stay, lay down, shake a paw, and fetch. She also learned a lot of dog interaction skills and how to be social with other dogs.

We felt very accomplished with Calypso and were ready to start looking at our new foster project, when my wife Holly showed me a picture of a litter of puppies. The mother, was a pure breed Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Two of the puppies were the same color of Bear. It did not take long for us to agree that we wanted one… While one of them was already spoken for the we are still getting two fosters. Our friend very likely will be adopting one of them.Of the two, one does looks just like Bear, currently he is named Richard.   

Newest Puppies

Mr. Bear