A Dog in the House

Working from home today, in the dining room, has me feeling all sorts of out of place. I suppose it's for good reason because we are fostering a sweet little girl named Ariel.  She snores beside me as I type this, and it's kind of soothing.

If you're familiar with this blog, or my flickr, you know how insane I am about dogs. Do you hate when strange people come up and ask to pet your dog? I'm that person. I make that child-like squeal "oooooolookatthepuppy" whenever I see a dog.

But guys, on the real? Owning/fostering a dog is hard-freaking-work. Especially in a special case like this where we don't know if she wants to snuggle or eat our cat Trill (who is safely playing in the closed off office) or how she is with other dogs, or strangers. From her history, she is good with children 7 years and older.

Before I forget, she's a Pit Bull. Which brings on a whole new complication, even though I'm an all out loving dog person, I still have that tinge of fear inside me because of what I've been fed by the media. It's an unfair judgement on the breed as a whole and I hate it. I hate that I even wrote this paragraph - but I wanted to be entirely honest.

This dog loves to snuggle, and give kisses. So far she eats all her meals in the same room as Trill (leashed, of course), and we hope to give them a real meeting soon . Ariel is outstanding on walks and has no reaction to barking dogs, runners, or bikes passing her. She did meet Chester (our studio dog), and sadly it didn't go well at the beginning. We were still able to walk them together for an hour, and afterwards I realized it was my fault for doing the introduction too quickly. Lesson learned. 


At this point we are looking to find her a home with a potential family that is active, willing to work with her on bad habits, and love her to pieces. Ariel absolutely deserves it.  If you or anyone you know is looking to adopt a dog, please let us know! We feel it should be someone who has some Pitty knowledge, or a willingness to learn about this amazing breed.

In the meantime, I'll take all the snuggle time I can get.

Update - I should probably make a note that we have been using some great online sources and books about Pit Bulls, and the basics of training a dog, breaking a dog in to a new home, dog & cat introductions, as well as dog on dog aggression. Here are a few I found helpful.
Diane Jessup Pit Bull Site
Cesar's Way
Pit Bulls For Dummies