Totsites - Our 3 Dogz

Gretchen is our 3^rd dog, who also happens to be a rescue dog...for those of you that don't know...I volunteer with an animal rescue group called Pet Samaritan Fund. Two years ago I had an online ad posted for some pets needing homes on a local news site. One morning I received a voice-mail at my work asking for help to find a home for a stray dog. They told me that they had found her wandering in the street, she was very thin and covered in foxtails. Her rescuers had 3 dogs of their own, and also ran a doggie daycare. They had kept her for about 6 weeks, but realized it was just too much to keep her. So, they had called me asking for help. I asked them if they could drop her off at my vet to be spayed. They agreed, but then their car broke down and were not able to get her there. I then asked them if they could e-mail me a picture so that I could put her on our website. They sent me this picture:

Mike and I had talked about the next dog we would get after Sequoia had passed. We both really liked the german shepherd breed. She really resembled the breed. For fun, I asked Mike to come take a look at her picture...it was love at first site. We got excited, but were still hesitant because we still had 2 other dogs, and were not sure about having 3. I e-mailed the people and offered to pick her up the next morning. Still unsure about keeping her, but knowing we wanted to help find her a good home, we knocked on the door. She barked at us for a bit, then she settled down and rolled onto her back. The girl had left the room to get a donation for our group, and Mike looked at me and said “Gretchen”, and in that moment I knew she was ours! We walked her out to our car and she got right in to the back of the wagon. I sat in the back seat, while Mike drove. She decided that she wanted to be with me, so she jumped the seat. She placed her head in my lap, and decided we were hers too. We drove her to the vet and dropped her off to be spayed. The vet also checked the sore under her arm. He said that a few of the foxtails had burrowed themselves into her armpit. We picked her up that night and introduced her to Sequoia. She was a bit groggy still so she was really well behaved that evening.

Shortly after we brought her home, we hired a dog trainer. About six weeks into the training, she started to be aggressive with strangers. It first started inside our house, and then progressed to anywhere we took her. Our trainer was not experienced with this kind of aggression, so we had to find another trainer who was. We were referred to a trainer in SLC called Brickyard Kennel. The trainer had to wear those big dog suits to even be around her. She attacked anyone that got near us. It was really scary to see her like that because she was the sweetest and most loving dog around us. She thought she was a lap dog, and loved to snuggle with us wherever we were. When she started to have these issues, I distanced myself from her. I did not want to become too attached to her, if she was not able to be trained. After several months of training she started to show improvement. We took her to training every week for about a year. She is still not 100% trustworthy around other people, but she is MUCH better than she was. In fact, if we are not around (specifically me) she will be your best friend. But for some reason, she still feels like she is my protector. We are unsure how she will react to the baby, but we are going to be on top of any bad behavior. She has really never had a problem with kids, in fact we think she will think she needs to be the protector of our baby...SO BEWARE : )