Meet Joe!

If there were such thing as the "perfect puppy," most certainly my new foster puppy, Joe, would fit the bill. Joe joined us Friday afternoon and he has been good as gold since the moment we met him.

I took Secret along for the ride to meet up with Joe's temporary foster mom near Rochester. Aside from it being really stinking cold outside while we were trying to make sure we covered all the info that needed to be covered, everything went very smoothly. Not having any idea how big he was, I brought Secret's wire crate to make sure he'd have plenty of room. Joe rode quietly all the way home, but I'm sure having just come out of surgery (neuter & dew claw removal) helped a little with that.

Secret was fascinated with Joe and would occasionally turn around and just watch him on the trip home. I thought they'd hit it off with no issues -- that is, until I pulled into the garage at home and all of the sudden she started to growl at him for no reason. Apparently things change when we reach our home turf!

She was fine when I got him out, though. Kaiser was the only naughty one, which was to be expected. It's easily managed by putting Kaiser in the house when Joe & Secret feel like playing, though, so it's a non-issue. He's doing much better already.

Joe is sweet as can be. He feeds off praise, loves to cuddle and just generally wants to be by people. He definitely seems food motivated (though the attention span is still pretty short) and he's been showing more interest in toys each day. That part is made difficult by Secret more or less saying, "MINE" any time he shows interest in something, but I'll start to work with him more on his own to see what interests him. This weekend was just a little crazy with getting him settled in and having a trial here in La Crosse.

Joe did pretty dang awesome at his first trial. Being raised on a farm, he has never been exposed to anything like what he experienced this weekend. He did great with all of the activity, noise (this was a LOUD trial), people, walking on a leash for the first time and having to spend so much time in a crate. He cried a bit during the briefing on Saturday when everyone left him, but after that he really didn't make much noise at all. He did start to bark at me when I gave treats to the other dogs after a run since I was doing so right next to his crate, but I started to give him pieces of chicken & cheese when he was quiet and he figured it out very quickly!

He's doing awesome with his potty training, too! Kim (who picked Joe & Mauer up from their surrendering family) said that they'd both done great with her all week and I haven't had one single accident since he came to my place. He's one smart boy, that's for sure. He's been a gem all day at the office, too.

Joe had his hind dew claws removed when he was neutered and it appears they must have been pretty major! I was very thankful that my vet (who does agility with us) offered to help me remove the bandages at the trial yesterday. I might have freaked out a bit if I would have discovered it on my own -- not to mention that he was pretty squirmy for the cutting part!

Poor Joe has a lot of staples, some pretty bad clipper burn and quite a bit of irritation. They started to bleed a bit when we removed the bandages and we worried that we'd have to re-wrap them because he was pestering them so badly. Once he got them cleaned up and the novelty wore off, though, he pretty much left them alone. He's been doing well today, so hopefully they'll heal up nice & quick. My vet recommended to go ahead and leave the staples in place for the full 10 days, though, due to the location and size.

So that's our Joe update! Let's see if we can't get this handsome fellow into a home for Christmas. :o) Or not, I really don't mind having him around. lol

Whoops! I suppose I could share his video that I made!