Old Dog, New Confidence

There was a comment on Saturday’s post that Howie seems like he’s gotten younger since we have had him. I will certainly take that as a compliment, but while he doesn’t necessarily seem younger to me, he does remind me that even our old dogs can still have a lot of life and joy left in them.

There are a few reasons Howie has more energy and spunk. The first one is very basic. He came in to the shelter having been a stray, malnourished and underweight. When we took him to the vet, she also mentioned that he had lost muscle tone, which takes even longer to get back. Howie’s recovery did not start with us. It started with the wonderful shelter volunteers, the same ones, who after he was adopted and brought back, determined that he was not a dog who could thrive in a shelter environment and contacted Old Dog Haven.

Howie has been with us two months now. His weight is back up. He has recovered some muscle tone. He runs around with our two, and even if he doesn’t play that much with them, he romps alongside them. We joke that we teach bad habits at our house. Howie now knows he’s allowed on furniture and is able to get himself up. He also follows our dogs to the window to see what is up when they start barking.

In addition to being stronger, Howie’s confidence is also coming back. He knows the routine; he knows the rules; he knows when his next meal is coming. He knows that he is allowed to stand up to Larry when Larry is being a punk. (Though I really wish I could get the two of them to stop considering me a resource that sometimes needs to be guarded from the other- they don’t guard me from June, just each other.) When we go to the dog park, he no longer spends the majority of his time seeking out people and attention.  He still gets plenty of love from everyone he presents himself to, but he is more interested in exploring the world, sniffing other dogs, and even playing with them a little bit.

At Westcrest, the dog park we go to most often because they have the small/shy dog area where we can let Howie off leash in a more controlled (ie smaller) area, they also have a path around the back. At the bottom of the path (see the pictures of June and Larry going off for a stroll), we’ve been able to let Howie off leash because there isn’t the chaos of the scrum area. He follows us along the path at his own pace, never feeling like he has to fight a leash to sniff what he wants to sniff.

Our dogs very rarely stick to the path. They love to run through the trees and underbrush of the hill. Well, on Sunday, Howie decided he was going to follow them on to the hill. (Luckily in one of the less overgrown areas.) It makes me happy to know that Howie is now confident enough to wander off and explore. He was not following another person. He followed June and Larry a little bit but also took a couple of paths they did not. At the same time, it makes me nervous since he is deaf, and not quite as nimble as the two of them.

But still, we were able to keep him in sight the whole time, and he seemed to know where we were the whole time. He explored. He came back. He got loves and treats. (And isn’t that what we all want?)

We tell people at the park that he’s a foster. It is not to hear them tell us how wonderful we are for taking in a foster dog, especially a senior dog; it is to let them know that this dog they are telling us is wonderful is adoptable, and to remind people that any senior dog, in a loving home, can thrive and have a lot of life left.