I am begining to think that the smartest thing we ever did was adopt Heyoka!
Heyoka has been here since just before Christmas. His first day here, he decided that Kayleigh was going to be his buddy. Kayleigh is a mal-mix who has always had to live on her own here as she is dog aggressive and food protective. The vet bills were out of control so Kayleigh got her own space. Heyoka goes to visit her every chance he gets. Now when Kayleigh sees him coming, she play bows and woos. They spend hours wrestling and playing. She has never growled at him, there has never been so much as a bared tooth. In the spring we plan to build them a divided pen--divided for when Kayleigh is eating and open at other times so they can play.
Now in the last week, Heyoka has made Bandit his new project. Bandit is a siberian who's been with us for 18 months. We are this fourth home, the others were all abusive to him. Bandit has always been alone and not terribly well socialized to other dogs. He just doesn't speak dog well. He tries to play and comes across as aggression to the others and he gets beat up. Bandit spends his days on a trolley tie-out where he can see the other dogs, but can't get hurt. I am not working this week so I have been outside spending lots of extra time with the dogs. At least three days in row now, Heyoka has been playing with Bandit--real playing, wrestling, running, wooing. It's freaking adorable! I've never seen Bandit play with another dog like this.
Add to all that, Heyoka came here knowing his basic obedience commands & housetrained, he is cat tolerant and reliable off leash. How someone else could have let him go is beyond me, but we will be forever grateful to the softhearted by-law officer who just couldn't put him down. (He was three weeks past his euth date when we got him!)
