A Mind Of His Own

While waiting for the time to pass when I could take Elliot to Marin, life became a series of walking him and introducing him to neighbors as we passed. Elliot showed his social proclivities. He loved people. He also loved children and other dogs, at least the ones that weren’t aggressive. He didn’t pay too much attention to cats.

However, as we walked up and down the steep hills surrounding my home, I began to notice a change. Whenever we came to a house where he had met someone, or when voices drifted out from homes, he would stop heeling and pull towards the driveways. When I pulled back, he showed his other side. He would sit down and refuse to move. Sometimes he jumped up, and I had to fight him to get down. He had a strong stubborn streak.

When we returned to our house, he refused to climb the porch steps. He sat and stared at me, as if to say “you can’t make me.” Elliot had a mind of his own.

This had to stop. I filled my pockets with reward goodies and stepped up the dog training. It seems to be working – everything but the steps. I can’t help wondering whether they have something to do with his bone problems, but I don’t really think that’s it.

Then came the puppy problems. Elliot chewed the corner of the living room
carpet. Luckily, he pulled the corner over and chewed underneath. I covered it with 100 % cayenne pepper. He has not gone near it again.

Elliot is still the sweet loving dog I adopted, but with a few glitches. I had forgotten how much energy it takes to train a puppy, a 70 pound one at that. Dog training classes are definitely on the agenda.

Finding Elliot

He wasn’t my first choice.

When I walked through the rows of caged dogs at the Mendocino Animal Shelter, all looking for someone to take them home, it was six months after my dog, Sarah, a Husky mix rescue dog, had been put down. She was fourteen-and-one-half years old. I was finally ready for another dog.

I was looking for an adult dog. A large one, maybe four or five years old. Most of the shelter dogs were younger. I geared into three dogs that turned out to be unavailable at the time. It was my daughter who attached herself to Elliot, a reddish brown Rhodesian Ridgeback mix with stitches in one eye, lying on a bed in his kennel. He was estimated to be one or two years old.

“I don’t think so,” I said. This dog was not what I had in mind.

“Why don’t you at least walk him?” She pushed the issue while the Adoption Coordinator took him from his kennel and put him on a leash.

Why not? I thought. Walking him wouldn’t change anything. I knew what I wanted.

I couldn’t believe how huge he was. And, the size of his paws indicated he was going to get bigger.

Elliot placed himself at my side, his massive Rottweiller head pressed against my thigh and automatically heeled, occasionally looking up at me for approval. He was one sweet dog. His rear end wiggled in ecstasy, his whip-like tail ending in a black hairy tuft wagged, and he loped along in a gangly puppy gait. Closer to one year than two, I thought.

I was hooked. Before long the two of us were on our way home.