Bad dog; Good dog

Mia (from the post "Hope of Good Puppies") was a wash. She's too gentle, too accommodating, and too disinterested in developing any kind of personal bond with anyone in the family. She just doesn't have what it takes to be a good protector. Fortunately, she's not the only dog around.

This past saturday, my family and I drove out to Stratford CT for me to meet a wonderful six year old Malamute named Blitz. My father and brother had met him the sunday before, and forty-five minutes after I walked into the yard and met this dog, he was next to me in the backseat of our car, riding to his new home.

He's wonderful. He's sweet and affectionate and calm and quiet. He possesses the most civilized manners I've ever seen in a dog, and every time my baby boy decides not to try to make friends, Blitz turns away from the cat, lies down on the floor, and stares at the far wall until he's sure the cat has gone away. And he weighs a hundred pounds.

We took him to the veterinary clinic today, for his first general checkup with his new doctor. Everything's good. He's got a possible infection between two toes on a hind leg, but Dr. Holly wrote him a script for antibiotics and told us to soak his foot in epson salts (and warm water, of course) daily for the swelling, so that just in case it's something more serious we won't have to worry about infection creating a false positive on any tests.

So, for the first time since the summer of 2000, I actually have a Malamute to go home to after a bad day. This is a very good development in my life. Now if only Blitz was a bit more comfortable with being outdoors for long enough periods to present a visual impression of a hundred pound wolf staring down the driveway at people who might become threats to his family...