Online Dog Adoption Application

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Foster's notes regarding Michelle:

Michelle is a very happy dog!  If you’re looking for someone to greet you enthusiastically when you get home from work, she’s your girl.  She is so excited when I come home or when we wake up in the morning.  She does a happy dance, forward and back, circles, and then rubbing against you and giving her head for pets, all while her tail is going like a propeller.  She reminds you to take joy in just being together.  She loves to lick, and has a tongue a mile long, so she’s always licking our toes and ankles.  When she can’t reach to lick you, she sticks out her tongue and licks the air in your direction!  She sleeps in my daughter’s bed sometimes, and she does love to snuggle, but she doesn’t try or ask to get on the furniture.  If you sit on the carpet with her, however, she’ll do an army crawl on her belly over to your lap to get some love.  She loves belly rubs, and will lay next to you belly up—saying, “please?!”

She’s very friendly and excited to meet new people, but she’s also great to chill with if you’re just relaxing.  When the kids are in school, she snoozes on her dog bed in my office most of the day.  She loves her bed, all kinds of toys; chewy, stuffy, and tennis balls which she loves to chase and then chew on until they’re nothing but a broken shell. If you’re playing tug of war and let her win, she’ll turn her back to you for a second, then look back at you, toy in her mouth, then come back over and nose the toy back under your hand.  My son plays rough with her, rolling around on the floor, and she loves that, and yet somehow she knows that he’s the only one she should play with like that.  Otherwise she doesn’t jump up and is not rough at all. 

She has a meek personality, and will cower if anyone is shouting.  She’s very sensitive to criticism and will drop whatever she’s doing and back away with even the mildest rebuke.  Because of this she learned very quickly not to go in the trash or chew anything off limits.  She is also alert to noises and will bark a warning when someone is approaching the house before I even hear them, but then she settles back down again.  Big noises like the blender or vacuum she is wary of, and will leave the area if they’re too close, but she isn’t neurotic about them.  She plays well with other dogs, and is neither dominant nor fearful.

She loves her crate, stays in it whenever no one is home.  We leave the door open, and she often lays in her crate with the door open like she would lay on the dog bed in the other room.  She goes in her crate on command.  She’s housetrained and will bark to tell you she needs to go out.

She loves car rides, whether she is sitting in the front seat next to me or the back.  She loves going to school to pick up or drop off the kids.  In fact, she loves the car so much that she usually stops when we walk past it coming up the driveway from a walk.  She stops walking at the car door, and looks up at me, like, “Oh look! Here we are next to the car, let’s go for a ride!!”

Michelle is always excited to go outside, but doesn’t go for long walks.  She has an old injury in her leg, and while the vet says it’s getting better, she still doesn’t seem to want to walk very far down the street before she turns back.  She’s a little jerky on the leash when she sees a lizard or something, and sometimes she puts her head down and squares her shoulders, determined not to take another step, but she’s easily distracted and cajoled out of her resolve.  She does run around the house sometimes, and she’s very fast and enthusiastic, but outdoors she easily over does it, and will come back limping.

She’s only 34 lbs, which is the perfect size.  She’s not a little dog, but she’s still small enough for my daughter to pick up.  She eats dry food, but loves treats.  She likes milk bones and small chewies.  She is food motivated for training, but we really haven’t worked on training very much because she’s really obedient and doesn’t have bad habits.

She doesn’t like baths, but she tolerates them miserably, head down and hugging the wall. She doesn’t really have any other bad habits or quirks.  Oh--she doesn’t like to sleep alone.  At night if we try to keep her in her crate in the living room, she barks all night (very annoying the first few days, until we figured it out).  But now she sleeps on a dog bed (or on my daughter’s bed) in my daughter’s room, and she sleeps through the night with no problem.  She’s just a very loving, happy, easy girl.  Come and meet her, because the pictures just can’t convey her sweet loving nature. (But only if you’re really ready to adopt, because I promise, you will fall in love!)

 My 12 year old daughter handles most of Michelle’s care.  This is what she has to say:
 Michelle is my favorite foster puppy dog. When I come home, she not only runs toward us, but she shakes her tail so hard that her entire backside jumps up and she skids on the floor and lands on our feet. When I take her out, she has a poo spot and a pee spot, so she knows where to go when she has to do either. When we throw tennis balls, it’s usually in the house (she can’t run too far because of her leg), but she runs after it, passes it, and skids on the floor and almost hits the wall, or does, but she still comes trotting back with the ball, always saying, “Throw it again!” She’s very playful with toys, she has a “play mode” where her ears go back and she’s always wagging her tail, and she’s got whatever toy she has in her mouth, telling us to throw it or tug it. When we play Tug Of War, if we let go, she’ll walk away and then come back if we don’t follow her, and put it in our hand again so we can play with her. She slept with me for a couple of days, and it went well, she would give me bedtime kisses, and I held her close to me, and she wakes me up early on a school day, and late on the weekend, because that is my schedule. She is scared of the vacuum, and things that make weird noises or are big and strange. 

Michelle was owner surrendered .  No fault of Michelle's, she was just too much dog for an elderly person.   She is so beautiful that her owner tried to give her a  good home.   She is happy and playful and loves to go on walks.