The Great Adventure

Last week I wrote you about the trauma involved in losing Cooper, my dog of 13 years. He was a good dog and was my companion in many activities throughout the years. He will be missed.

A few days later, my daughter Melissa came to stay with us. She lives in Denton, Texas, about 1 1/2 hours north where she works for the University of North Texas. She’s been living and working in her small apartment, a victim of shelter in place, and steadily getting more homesick and lonely. So we told her to come down and join us.

When she came, she brought her new roommate. His name is Ollie. He’s a Shelter Rescue, is a six-year-old pug-dachshund mix and is heartworm positive. He has some behavioral issues–he’s terrified of everything, including people–and we believe that he had been traumatized as a puppy. So we are using TLC to try to bring him around and make him one of the family.

He’s only here temporarily, as is my daughter, but he’s already started to claim the house as his own. Each night, when we go to bed, he starts howling, which continues at least until we go to sleep (not sure how much later after that; I’m asleep). After that, at first he settled down to sleep.

We took him to the vet because of a cough and his heartworm, and we got him on medication. Now he’s feeling better and he’s decided to start becoming a terror. This morning he emptied two trash cans, detached my wife’s computer cable and moved it to his bed, and started chewing in wiring in the living room. Mind you, he’s not a puppy; he’s six. But apparently he’s feeling better, so that’s good news.

With our loss, it’s good to have him (and my daughter) with us. He seems to be making himself at home, as dogs should do. And we hope he will soon get to the point where he calls this home, or at least his second home.