The Pups

I’ve received some requests for more information, and of course some cute pictures, of our two very sweet and mostly good rescue dogs Taz and Tala. I’m not only a writer and an Infrastructure Engineer, I’m also a fur mom and these two are very much like two energetic toddlers. Here are some information about each of them. I hope you enjoy their rescue stories and some cuteness from the pictures at the bottom.

Taz was rescued from a car dealership that closed and the owners left three dogs behind with no one to care for them. When the rescue organization found him, he had no hair and was extremely malnourished. At first they thought he had mange but it became apparent after taking him to their vet, that the lack of hair was due to the lack of food and conditions. During the day, while people were shopping for cars, the three dogs were kept in a shed with no air conditioning. Summers in Houston Texas are brutal, even under the shade. The vet also discovered a bb embedded under his skin. Someone had shot him with a bb gun and he also had heartworms. When we went to go meet him for the first time he had absolutely no indoor manners or training and he was all over the office picking up anything and everything to sample in his mouth. When this 60 pound Pointer mix casually and so easily climbed up in my lap he stole our hearts and we decided to adopt him. He survived the heartworm treatment and is heartworm free and after many months of training he settled down a bit. As a teenager I trained dogs for show and obedience and boy did this knowledge come in handy. We have discovered many odd behaviors that we believe to be a reflection of how the owners treated him. It would be a valid statement to say that he has doggie PTSD. We named him Tasmanian due to his never ending energy but we call him Taz for short, unless he is getting into trouble and then we used his full name. He was hard to train because he didn’t have a sense of pleasing you, he just wanted to please himself. Luckily he saw that Tala was getting treats for things she did so he decided he wanted in and started copying her.

Tala was another rescue that we got from the SPCA. As you can see in the pictures she has one blue eye and one brown one and she is able to see out of both of them. In fact her dominant eye, that she is always looking at you with, is the blue one. She was from an unwanted pregnancy between a black and white Border Collie and a cholate Lab. When we got her she was 9 months old and didn’t have any real signs of abuse, they just didn’t want her. One word of advice when you adopt from the SPCA, make sure to fully use their complimentary vet visit and purchase the vets doggie health insurance. I say this because after a few months we realized when she ran hard, her knee would pop out of the socket. Luckily simply having her sit would pop it back in. We decided to take her to a specialist and discovered that she needed knee surgery on both back knees, and a hip replacements on both hips. She had hip dysplasia and when I saw the x-rays the hips weren’t even in the socket. At nine months old! We believe this condition most likely came from the Lab in the combination and it’s possible the owners knew this and this is why they decided to leave her behind. As of today she had the knee surgeries and one hip replacement with the other one coming this year. She became a new dog and runs and jumps on everything. Training her was easy, almost as if she could guess what you wanted. She even helped with training Taz. He saw what she was doing and that she got treats so he decided to copy her. But even with the training she was acting out, doing things like what we call couch snacking. Basically pulling the foam out of the couch. When I realized that the Border Collie side of her was her dominant personality I started giving her jobs to do and things have calmed down. She loves to play ball so we go outside three times a day to play. In the afternoon she does doggie puzzles, we do training for 15 minutes a day and their food bowls are the puzzle bowls. Border Collies are not for people who want to sit on their couch and barely pay attention to their dogs. You will have furniture torn up, and a crazy dog who is going to act out. If you find yourself rescuing a Border Collie, get into a dog training program right away.

We absolutely love these two and are so happy we decided to adopt them. It’s true with a mixed breed you don’t know what you are going to get personality wise but the adventure of discovery is so worth it.

You can also follow them on Instagram at spoiled_rescue_dogs

Until Next Time Live Well and Prosper!