The Schuerman household has a new furry, four-legged family member! It's kind of crazy how it all happened. We really had not been talking about adopting another dog.
In September, while Danny was away in Seattle/LA for work, I sent him a screen shot of a post from a local teacher who had found a dog and had brought him to the Franklin County dog shelter. He was a super cute dog. I jokingly threw out the idea of fostering him. I later learned that he might have some behavioral problems and it probably wasn't a good fit for us. The next day, Danny was at the famous fish market in Seattle and he sent me a pic of a dog that was there that was the spitting image of Scarlet. He then later sent me a posting of a dog named Carmen (we always talked about naming a future girl dog Carmen, after Carmen Ohio) who was at the shelter where we adopted Scarlet. She was also a pit mix. It just seemed meant to be. We talked about it (without the kids knowing) and decided we'd take a trip to the shelter that Friday. Danny got home Friday afternoon and he and the kids met me at the shelter when I got off of work.
When we got to the shelter, the staff told us that Carmen was outside on a walk, but we could wait to see her. I had remembered seeing a really cute dog, Pop Rocks, on their site and asked if we could visit with him. When they brought him to the room we were waiting in, he was so excited! There were tennis balls and toys in the room and he just bounced from one toy to another and to each of us. He was a ball of energy and I wondered if he was going to be too boisterous for us. When Carmen was back, we visited with her as well. We knew that she had just been spayed the day before, and she would probably be subdued because of her meds. She wagged her tail some, but was more interested in sniffing the perimeter of the room rather than check us out or play. We decided she would probably be a good fit for an older couple who isn't very active. We played with Pop Rocks again and decided we wanted to take him home.
We were told he was 2-3 years old. He had been a stray that was dropped off by ASPCA on Labor Day. He had been at the shelter for almost 3 weeks. We were told he had a collar on & a partial leash; he was not chipped or neutered. We bounced around Ohio State themed names for a couple of days and landed on Oden, after the basketball player, Greg Oden. We got home pretty late from the shelter, so we grabbed dinner out and invited my parents over to meet him while we ate. He quickly ran from room to room to investigate. He started to mark the mattress and box spring we had against the wall in our bedroom (we were in the middle of renovating; thankfully they were still wrapped in plastic!) He caught his reflection in Cadence's bureau mirror and wanted to attack! Luckily he got used to it really quickly. He also jumped onto our bed SEVERAL times that night, but he learned that his comfy bed on the floor was his and he now loves it.
He's been the best dog. He's learned how to sit and shake. He is not aggressive about his food. He will wait for hours to go outside. He loves to sit on your lap. Scarlet would be so surprised to see we let him on the couch (on a blanket); I was against this at first! He's also slept on Colin's bed with him on several occasions. He doesn't shed nearly as much as Scarlet did. We're interested to see if he develops any seasonal allergies like Scarlet. The one thing we need to be careful about is he is very protective of us and his house. He also thinks he's allowed to run outside anytime we open the door.
We're super pumped that we found each other and he's been the perfect addition to our family.
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