November 02, 2005

Long lost siblings re-united

Dog meets sister.
Dog tries to kill sister.
Damn dog.

So we got Forest and Sable together for the first time last night! Actually, if you are used to dogs, it went very well. There was a whole lot of barking and growling and a few unpleasant "I ain't stinkin' my arm in there to pull them apart" dog fights, but they spent more time wagging tails, licking butts, and ignoring one another than fighting if you really total it all up.

If you haven't heard yet, we discovered a month or two back that friends of ours has one of the other dogs from Forest's litter. It was so odd to discover this now because we have known each other since before the adoptions took place eleven years ago! They were over at our house and I was talking about my cranky old man (Forest) and we got to figuring out how old he is. The looks from the other side of the room got more bizarre as I continued into the situation surrounding his adoption (they were abandoned at the shelter at 4 weeks old.) Eventually Jenny mentioned that Sable (one of their pups) and a past neighbor had two of the other dogs from what simply had to be the exact same litter. We amused ourselves with recollections on how only two out of the five or so puppies had shared more than one breed. They've all got lab, but past that it was a God-only-knows mix. We are guessing definitely beagle in there somewhere though because 3 had both beagle and lab traits. So Sable is a black lab.

So, Jenny shows up for dinner last night and mentions that she's got Sable in the back of the car if we wanted to try and introduce them at some point. Both of our families lost a dog this summer, making Forest and Sable suddenly only-dog-children, so we thought, hey, it's worth a shot. We figured the worst case scenario involved me scraping Forest's remains off the sidewalk and Sable being tossed back into the car through supper. I slapped on Forest's Gentle Leader (if you don't have one of these you should look into it, they are awesome) and we went down the street to do the introductions on neutral territory. Neither dog is remarkably sociable, but they both have done fine with some other dogs in the past. They are still working out some territory issues, but they shared the big fenced in backyard alright, and did okay inside for a little while.

I think there may be some potential for a few outdoors play-dates eventually, but I'll be happy either way. It was totally worth it to see a full-size black lab and a half-size lab/beagle mix sitting next to each other and to say, "I'm sorry Forest, but your momma was a whore."

November 2, 2005 07:58 PM

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