A week has passed since Rowdy came into my life and I have to say that as the days go on he seems to become more and more like the dog he should be, rather than the confused, uncertain ball of fur that he was when he came. I’m still insanely pissed off at his previous owner, however.
I’ve never had a pet before in my life, but when my boyfriend and I decided that we were going to get a dog I tried to find as much information about dogs, how to raise them, train them and keep them healthy as possible. Rowdy’s previous owner, however, doesn’t seem to have even tried. He claims to have owned dogs in the past and I can only wonder how long they lived and how well they felt.

When Rowdy was dropped off, he was jumping all over his previous owner, who didn’t seem to react at all, he was marking every single tree, lamppost, stone that he possibly could and, relentlessly pulled at the leash while we were walking towards the apartment. Though we had been assured that he was used to having contact with other dogs, this was clearly an exaggeration, because the moment we met another dog he would immediately try to rush forward and play, while whining loudly. He is eight months of age and has no clue as to how he should act towards other dogs.
Other than these problems, which can be dealt with in time, there was one other quite immense flaw in the man’s caretaking of this poor creature. For those of you with any knowledge of dogs at all, you’ll know that, up to about a year of age, pups are supposed to be fed a certain food, food with various proteins that aren’t in food for adult dogs. Well, apparently Rowdy’s previous owner had no clue about this, and had been feeding him the wrong food constantly.

I could go on and on about all the things that make me want to smash the man’s face in with a rather large, rusty shovel, but I won’t.

I will, however, tell you that we’ve decided to keep the little mutt and see to it that the remainder of his life is lived well. He needs to be trained up, sure, but he’s a clever little thing and he learns at a disturbing pace.
Soon he’ll be a completely different animal than the lost, uncertain soul he was just eight days ago.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 22:11 and is filed under Everyday Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.