House Guest or New Family Member?

It was late Saturday morning when our door bell rang. My husband was closest, so he answered. He went outside. Meanwhile, my daughter looks out the window and says “Oh, look at that cute doggy in that car!”

Several minutes later, my husband comes back inside as the car leaves our driveway. “What was that about?” I ask. He explains it was a lady who lives close by. She rescues dogs and had found this one in our neighbor’s yard. She was looking to find out who owned it.

He paused in his explanation. More quietly he said, “I told her if she can’t find the owner, we would keep him while she puts up posters and the like. She can’t take him because she has big dogs.”

A few hours later the doorbell rang again, I let my husband answer it. I knew who it was and what it meant; we were going to have a house guest.

My daughter and I went to the porch to greet him. He was a smaller, older dog that reminded me of the dachshunds my aunt had from the time I was very young.

It was obvious he had been on his own for awhile. . .he was fairly thin and scratching. I made my husband go buy flea shampoo and bath him before he could stay in the house. I was right to do so, because I can’t believe he did not look black with the amount of fleas that came off in the bath.

We had plenty of flea/tick prevention medicine for our basset hound, but he is much larger. My husband went to our medical stash and found flea prevention meds we purchased for my mom’s boston terrier who died of a heart attack in 2007. Turns out, it did not expire until 2011.

He weighed the dog because I was not sure he would even meet the 11 pound minimum on this medicine. He weighed 12 pounds.

My husband then went to get the crate out of the storage building. It was for our much larger basset hounds, but he settled right in on the blanket and rug we placed in for him along with a toy my husband bought when he went purchased the flea shampoo.

He has settled right in and made himself at home.

My daughter has named him Biscuit.

He likes to sleep behind cushions on the couch and chair. He also has become very adapt and burying himself in our over-sized chair. If he’s not a sleep, he follows one of us around or sits on our lap.

He is still not allowed in the bedrooms or kitchen. I am still concerned about fleas, ticks, and such.

He has ran away already, but came running back. We discovered a couple of small holes under the fence from dogs digging their way in.

He officially becomes ours tomorrow. Then, it is off to the vets. . .