Looking for a dog! Ontario!!

Hey everyone,

It is time to welcome a dog into my life. My SO and I have bought a house, the bills are not too taxing on us (we waited a couple months to make sure we have extra money) and this week we completed fencing in our entire backyard (my stipulation). Now it is time to start looking!

We want an adult dog, medium-large (lab/shepherd cross size) and a female (our best friend has a male dobie and we want the best chance of them getting along)

So if anyone knows of any dogs in ontario that are available that fit this description please let me know! we are going to start going to the shelters and looking at dogs on petfinder this week.

Very excited! Hopefully Cello and Kismet will be as excited....

we are only looking for an adult! so age isn't really an issue, just looking for the right fit! And like you said, there are some "special needs" I can handle and some I can't.

I don't think Cello would appreciate this he is after all, my best friend.

Just went and checked out their website. I love lacy. Might go see her! Thanks for the heads up.

Wow! We really wanted a white/light coloured shepherd cross. She is waaaaaaaaaaay to cute. She is a bit younger then I wanted.... but I think we're going to come see her tomorrow afternoon/evening. Do you have ANY idea how she is with other animals (cats/dogs). Do we need to make an appnt to see her?

she was already adopted! but vibes for more goodluck please

They are going to see how she does with cats today, if all goes according to plan then this will be our dog tomorrow....

http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/dis...petid=15120008

Yeah! they just called and said she was great with cats which is good because cello has already staked claims to the petbed we bought her.

I did buy a gate that the cats can get in and out of into a 'safe room' that the dog can't enter, and it's a room that they already have food, water and cat tree in, so I think it should all work out.

Hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.

She should be coming home with my SO tonight, assuming that the intro. with him goes well. I won't be home till really late so I won't meet her till the wee hours of the morning, pictures to follow tomorrow.

As for cat intro's it should go OK. Sometimes I take my cats home to my parents and we have a very rambunctious, yet sweet natured, dog, and after about a day the cats don't even hide from her. And whenever my girlfriend brings her doberman over, the cats hiss and spit for a bit, but that seems to be that. For the first little while we will crate the dog when we aren't home, to be sure there aren't any unsupervised altercation. We also got a really awesome pet gate (that has a built in human door and cat flap!), and gated off our spare room where the cats already have their bed, cat tree, water dish and where I feed them sometimes, so I'll move a litter box up there, so they have somewhere they can always escape....... hopefully I'm prepared in that respect!

she is wonderul, my perfect dog really, other then I think she is going to get MUCH bigger then I was hoping. she is 'full grown' at 3, however has NO fat and NO muscle tone, so she might be 60 or 70 lbs. now but she is going to get much bigger. Also she didn't know how name at all, so she is now riikka (Ree-ka it's finnish).

She is wonderful with the cats, and the cats just aren't bothering with her. The intro's couldn't have gone any better. She is one of the most gentle dog's I have ever met. She doesn't have a lot of confidence, she is very timid meeting people but once you introduce yourself all she wants is pats and love.

She also has no training (housebroke though! yeah!), but seems to have already picked up sit a little bit, we are going to take her to obedience, but probably in the new year, give her a couple months to gain confidence. In the house she is SO quiet, she loves her bed, hasn't made a peep. Anyways, it seems like it is going to work out perfectly.

We are taking her to the vet though this week, just incase, getting a once over, blood work, and I think getting her mouth and stuff checked. She doesn't have much of an appetite, her breath is AWFUL! and she 'yawns' a lot, not sure if that's a behaviour, or medical or something else.
Her stools are also runny, but none of these things are suprising considering she was a stray, then in a shelter for a couple months (and didn't do well) and then was transported to a foster for one night, then to our place.

Any advice though on the confidence and breath would be appreciated or advice in general, we are pretty new dog owners. Also any breed guesses?
We think she might not be a cross at-all and might be an anatolian-shepherd.

With no further adieu - Riikka

But first - everything for cello, even dog beds


Here she is! (better outside pictures to follow)

She doesn't seem gassy, and she had the classic shelter problem,. where she ate whatever they had handy, and apparently not much of it. We have her on orijens (only has had one meal so far) and are going to supplement it with a homemade groundbeef, rice, pasta, veggie dogfood I've always made for my dogs.

We will go buy some stuff for oral care ASAP.

Here is her side profile, and keep in mind, she has NO muscle and is really underweight! Let me know what you think