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Our Dog Adoption Story

Scout

By: Murry and Julie Walton
5/27/2010
DogBlog: A Dog's Eye View

We really missed having a dog after our beloved 14 year old Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler, Scout, died. We seriously questioned the wisdom of searching for another family pet. It was so difficult to grieve the loss of such a good companion and member of our family. But we soon realized that our house was not a home without a dog.

Finding our dog on PetFinder.com

We started to look online for a dog and were excited to find Petfinder.com, a website that helps people find and adopt pets from shelters. We took several days to check out what kind of dogs were available in our area. We appreciated that with Petfinder we could specify the gender and the breed, as well as our location.

As we searched, we found ourselves continuously returning to the website page for one particular dog, an Australian Cattle Dog/Blue Heeler/BorderCollie mix. Once we saw Maggie, we knew she would be the dog for us. Julie contacted the shelter and made an appointment for us to go and see Maggie that very day. It was an hour's drive away but well worth it.

Maggie was in the dog shelter rescue program and was being trained by prison inmates. We followed the shelter manager out to the penitentiary. There we met Maggie and her trainer who told us some of the things Maggie had learned, and had us walk her around the yard and follow our commands. We both fell in love with Maggie right there and then. After filling out adoption papers, she came home with us that day and has been our faithful friend and companion going on two years.

We found out right away that Maggie needed some special attention. She is so smart that she got into a little trouble right off the bat. She got into medication, which was in a pill box on top of the dresser. Our vet was called and Maggie met Dr. McKown at Pets First Animal Clinic and enjoyed his tender care that day. She hadn't even been with us a full week.

Dog Obedience Training at PetcoMaggie had a few other social issues to work out. Who knows what kind of life she lead before she was rescued. She had to learn not to attack the vacuum and no need to fear the iron and ironing board. She had to learn that we do not need protection while driving in the car, so it was not socially acceptable to bark at bicycles, motorcycles, roller skaters, joggers, and mother's strolling their babies. We took Maggie with us to a Canine Education class. We learned how to be good dog parents and Maggie learned some great social skills. Because she took the class inside a pet store, she now associates that training with the store and is thrilled every time we go to Petco.

We have come to the conclusion that Maggie would have been totally bored living with a family that just left her in the back yard. Fortunately for Maggie, she gets to be a cyber dog with Julie working from home. She has more toys than we can count and is happy to go for walks and drives in the car. Even though she is teased by squirrels, she is happy to play and run like the wind in our fenced backyard.

MaggieWe had started on our blog journey with our dog Scout as the spokesdog for our DogBlog: A Dog's Eye View, a fun and informative blog for dogs and their owners in the Northwest. When Maggie joined our "pack" she became a regular feature in many of our articles. In addition to writing about Maggie, we have created video reviews of pet products. Maggie is becoming quite the star.

We are so happy that we decided to adopt a dog, and really appreciate the online service, Petfinder, that directed our attention to the rescue shelter where we found Maggie. Without Petfinder.com, we would not have found our cyber dog, Maggie.


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