The Red Brick Times

Some of you may remember Tux, the black Great Dane I had. What a dog. Even though it's been almost twenty years I still miss him. After he died I didn't want another dog right away. Tux was too hard an act to follow. Then my work situation changed to where I was gone all day (12+ hours with commute and errands) and didn't think it right to get a pet only to make it spend most of its time alone. Now however that's not the case. My job is pretty flexible, so much so that sometimes I could even take a dog along with me, and the hours aren't consistently long. So.... I've been thinking about gettin' me a pooch. Wednesday evening I went to the Oasis Animal Shelter in Oberlin. I'd heard of the place so first Googled it and found they show some of their dogs on the web. Ginger and Niki caught my eye right away. Vera, the person in charge, met me there (you have to pre-arrange an appointment as the place is all volunteer and doesn't have regular hours) and let me pet/play with both dogs to my hearts content. Ginger, found abandoned close by the shelter, is an absolutely beautiful dog but pretty shy and a bit high strung. Maybe it's due to her present circumstances. No way to tell. Niki, taken from her owner after a neighbor complained to the cops of mistreatment, is pure mutt. No beauty contests in her future but you'll never find a sweeter or more loveable puppy. Decisions, decisions. I've done some other web browsing (specifically here) but I dunno. I've always said my next dog would be a rescue, not a purchase.
Posted 6:25 AM by whatley (6) comments

       Comments:

Russ,
I'd suggest the younger of the two rescue dogs and enrollment in puppy training classes with professional trainers. (Mostly they train you to be consistent in your commands and responses to the dog and helps the dog get properly socialized with people and other dogs) We've done a number of classes with Duffy from intro puppy classes at about 6 mo. thru intro agility to formal obedience that we're doing now. With the rescue dog the younger they are the less ingrained the problems(and they will have some) caused by their previous situation are and hence the more easily resolved or eliminated. The training sessions can help identify any of these pretty quickly and the trainer can recommend solutions.
The Weimaraners are nice dogs if you get a well-bred one. Go to the AKC website and find the national club for Weimaraners and check out the sections on health. It should give a good rundown on things that the breed is susceptible to and how breeders minimize their occurance.
Cool, you're getting a dog! Good Luck. I like Niki (probably the Golden Retreiver look with a big dose of Puppy Factor)

# posted by  A. O. : August 20, 2005 10:50 AM
 
Turns out the contact person for the national Weimaraner organization lives about twenty minutes away from us.Here's the AKC link and the Weimaraner Club info.

American Kennel Club

Weimaraner Club of America
Corresponding Secretary : Ellen Dodge
Po Box 489
Wakefield, RI , 02880--048
Website: www.weimclubamerica.org
Email: wcadodge@netsense.net

# posted by  A. O. : August 20, 2005 11:08 AM
 
Those links are screwed up. Let me try again.

American Kennel Club

www.weimclubamerica.org

# posted by  A. O. : August 20, 2005 2:07 PM
 
Still having problems with your links eh? I can edit (fix) them if they're part of a post on the main page but not if they're within a comment. Feel free to email me with questions if you want.

Doggy Update: After making another visit to Oasis today I decided on Niki. I have to make one more business trip at the end of next week so couldn't bring her home with me. Bummer. I really wanted to. Both I and Vera (at Oasis) thought that it would be confusing to Niki to be here for a week then be back at Oasis (or another kennel) for 4 or 5 days. Vera was nice enough to agree to hold her for me until I'm back from that trip.

# posted by  whatley : August 21, 2005 3:27 PM
 
Good choice, Russ. Niki's gorgeous. Looking forward to meeting her.

# posted by  ralph : August 22, 2005 8:13 PM
 
Yeah, she's a cutie. The first time I saw her she was in the middle of losing her puppy coat. She had a mottled color and looked kind of ragged in general. By the second look (or as my boss said, during the final interviews) that was mostly over with and she looked a lot nicer. To be honest Ginger suited my taste more in the looks department but Niki's temperment, playful but very laid back, is so perfect. I don't know if she'll get as big as I'd like but whatever, it doesn't matter that much. Because of her size I was afraid she might have a yappy little bark but the second time I saw her she finally spoke up. Her bark was so deep I couldn't believe it came out of something so small. Cool.

# posted by  whatley : August 23, 2005 7:42 AM
 
Post a Comment


---