The Almost Perfect Dog

After closing our bed and breakfast business, my husband and I decided that now would be the perfect time to adopt a second dog. We have been a two-dog family several times before, and always really enjoyed watching the dogs interact with each other. Now that we didn’t have people coming and going through our house, we decided it would be great to have a playmate for Jack, our greyhound/border collie/black lab mix, to run and play with him in our oversized fenced lot. We agreed it should be a young female who could bond with me the way Jack has bonded with Stu (he’s definitely a “daddy’s dog”).

Stu used the internet to review thousands of photos and descriptions, from many sources, of dogs available for adoption throughout Florida. He considered the necessary combination of size and weight (to run and play with Jack), gender (female), age (preferably housetrained but not much more than a year old), and personality, before emailing a select few of these for my review.

One of the dogs, Annie, captured my heart very quickly from the photo and description. She was a 45-pound border collie mix who loved to run, and her half-black-half-white face looked like a little harlequin and made me smile. With her mostly black coloring accented with white, she was also color-coordinated with Jack – a plus, although not a requirement.

I filled out an online application for adoption to at least get to meet Annie. Stu and I were certainly willing to drive to Bradenton to see her, which is just over one hour from our home. Within a day, Annie’s foster mother had called me and we had talked. Everything she said about Annie sounded perfect, and she offered to bring Annie to our house since they were with their dogs on the east coast and would be driving through this area anyway.

When the family brought Annie to our home, she was released into our large fenced yard and immediately began running and playing actively with Jack as if they were old friends. Their interaction was peaceful, since she was a little shy and willing to accept his “alpha dog” status immediately. And he was willing to let her get in his round plastic wading pool, of which he is normally very possessive. Annie was also very affectionate to both of us almost immediately, and of course I fell in love with her almost at first touch. The foster mother said she would leave Annie with us and if everything worked out would mail us the paperwork for completion. This was an act of trust that we appreciated.

The next two days were fun but crazy as we helped Annie acclimate to our routine. She was a little hesitant to eat her meals, and we had to put her and her food bowl in a closed room away from Jack to ensure that he would not scarf it down before she could touch it. She also seemed to have a great desire to be outdoors all the time; she would sit under the palm tree and gaze out at the lake as if she wanted to be out there herself. She had a quiet wistfulness about her behavior that touched me, and to which I could relate. And the interaction between the two dogs got better all the time, with Annie starting to assert herself a little bit. They provided such exercise and joy for each other in our large yard, and it was a delight to see.

The morning of the third day, I awoke to find that Stu had left both dogs outside in the yard for nearly an hour. We had been warned by the foster family that Annie had escaped several times from their makeshift yard fence, but that she had always returned home. The foster mother had looked at our professionally-installed 4-foot chain link fence and agreed that this should not be a problem, but we were all aware of the superior intelligence of dogs with border collie genes, so we were keeping watch.

Imagine my surprise (and Stu’s) to discover that Annie was walking around the OUTSIDE of the fenced yard, heading directly for busy Main Street on the side street. In fact, a car turning on to the side street literally had to stop mid-turn to avoid hitting her. We quickly went to the front of the house and coaxed her to us on the front porch and back inside the house.

Stu immediately went outside to begin his detective effort to find the weak place in the fence which had allowed Annie to escape. A few minutes later, he beckoned me outside where we could see a white lawn chair up against the fence with muddy paw prints on the seat and going up the back.

After carefully considering the situation, we knew we would need to send her back, despite the fact that she had bonded with me, with Stu and with Jack – and of course, we with her as well. An escape onto Main Street with its constant and often speeding traffic could be an immediate death sentence for a dog. When we are driving, we dislike having to watch constantly for a couple of small strays that always seem to be on the roads around here, so we would never wish that on other drivers. But worst of all, we knew that Jack was apt to learn habits from other dogs, and having another dog teach Jack to escape would risk his life as well. Jack is the best dog either of us has ever owned in our lives, and is so precious to us that we could not take that risk.

We contacted the former foster mother, who agreed to drive to us the next day and retrieve Annie. We’re certain she will find her a good home, since she was such a darling and mostly well behaved young dog. And some lucky family will get a great, affectionate, smart, active young dog in Annie.

While this story had a somewhat sad ending for me personally, it could have been a lot sadder had either dog been hit by a car. And we have decided that we will remain a one-dog family until such time as we can sell this big house on Main Street and move into a smaller house better suited for two adults. The new house, however, must have a decent sized fenced yard.