the italian stallion

well, it's official.

we are now fostering an unaltered, 17 month old male catah0ula cur d0g named r0cky balb0a.

we are going to call him r0cks.

there was a gal that needed to find him a home at the place we take the baby to get her hair cut. this gal works 6 days a week and is getting ready to start taking courses in chemi$try (good luck to that) and was trying to find him a home with a family.

we met with them on saturday to have a look at the dog and get a feel for him. the second i saw him, i wanted him.
but i had also done some reading about the breed and talked to some people that i know that have other varieties of the same breed (one of my aunt's has had a lem0n m0uth cur for 15 years). they are pretty high maintenance and usually prefer to be the alpha individual.
and that it can be a challenge to make a dog of this breed a family pet. they tend to thrive better in situations when they have jobs (sheep, cattle, hog, etc..).

i guess i could teach him how to fetch beers out of the fridge.

yesterday afternoon was when i realized that he needs a job though. the baby was out swinging in the yard and the dogs were running circles all around her. every time she would come away from the swing set, r0cks would sort of corral her back to the general area of the swings. she tried three or four times to go through the gate to the other side of the yard (still in the back yard but technically the dog side of the yard) .

and when i went to pick him up yesterday, he's a total jackass in the car. he's used to riding in the back of a truck but not in a closed in vehicle, that's for sure.

he's really going to have to mature quite a bit before we take him to the woods or anything like that where we usually let the brown dog run all over the place.

but ole'r0cks - he's a neat dog, indeed. a very strong character and amazingly vocal. whatever it is that he tells me seems very important and good information to know.
or something.

he's not spent much time in a crate but took to it very well last night at bed time.

i can tell it's a bit confusing for the brown dog. there wasn't much in the way of 'getting to know you before you invade my home' time. and until we get the new dog's box from where he was, he's using the brown dog's crate.
not that brown has used his crate in some time (he can so be trusted now, unlike this time last year), but he knows it's still his and has a hard time with the other dog in it.
every time i get treats for the dogs, brown runs straight to his box, only having me coax him out with the same treat and kicking the new dog square in the ass to get him in the box.

but we've made it through the first 24 hours.
all the butt smelling is over and it's just time to feel it all out and see how well it fits.

the girls love him and even the husband seems to give a shit.
in the end though, it's up to me.

ya... i'll have another serving on shit stew, please.
it's fine if it touches my crap compote.