Joe, Anna, Bella... Rocks! Oh, and Merry!

I just had a number of conversations with my old business partner Joe Rocks about a dog and had quite a great time teasing him. You see, Joe saved my business and I owe him a debt of gratitude that I am hard pressed to truly express. I had just hired Joe as an assistant when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I gave him the choice to either run for the door or stick it out and see what happened. Joe, a recent grad from Rutgers, magically happened to be a phenomenal dog trainer and increased our business by nearly 400%. I made him a partner very quickly and he royally kicked ass!

One of the interesting things that happened during his tenure with me was that he found his dog Bella. It is just one of the many occurrences of a dog finding its owner and the story deserves telling.

For some time I had been donating training to a local rescue group and developed a nice rapport with one of their agents, Robin. She had a shipment of pups coming up from the southern states from "kill shelters" but had found homes for all of the puppies. Upon their arrival, she discovered that there was something wrong with one of the pups and was not sure if placement with the intended family would be a good match. She asked if Joe and I would take a look at her and make a call as to the dog's stability. We invited her to bring the pup to the kennel and were greeted by a drooling, neurotic mess. She was a young, black flat coated retriever mix with a huge ass. Sorry, but she really did have a big ass. We put her up in a kennel run and she retreated to the corner, face first and head down. She utterly refused to give any eye contact or even acknowledge human or canine presence. I warned Joe that she didn't look good and that the only other times I had seen dogs behave in such a manner was when they were brain damaged. I gently told him to not get attached and that we may have to tell Robin that she would not be suitable for placement. You see, brain damaged dogs are not predictable and often uncontrollable and should not be placed in a home that can not 100% guarantee civic safety. It's a very hard match and most times it is better to put the dog down than risk liability.

She was really pretty though and I am a sucker for a pretty dog. After throwing a bazillion treats into the kennel I told Joe the we were going to use a bit of brawn: we would force her to come out and assess the damage. We both geared up for being bit up, locked down the training room and I went in and leashed her up. The pup wouldn't walk, wouldn't look up, wouldn't take food. Not the types to give up, Joe and I gave her the best 10 minutes of our careers and then put her up in the kennel again. I called Robin and asked for a few more days with the puppy to see if we could bring her around.

She never snapped at us. Her disposition couldn't be measured; she was just in sheer terror. After a few more phone calls, Robin found out the pup had been born at the shelter in Georgia. Her mother was brought in probably as a stray and was pregnant. The shelter had been really overcrowded -hence the large number of pups they had sent to Robin's rescue- and the conclusion we collectively drew was that the pup had had very little human contact. It was surprising that she wasn't interacting with the other dogs at our kennel. We even tried to put her up near my Rottweiler Buster, who was just a big mushy boy and loved everybody and every dog.

Joe's birthday was a few days away. Robin told us that they had called the dog Bella after me (yikes!) so we started to call her Bella.

Now, you know something is up when your partner beats you into work everyday, by-passes the dogs we were being paid to train and is making googly eyes at the strange black dog from Georgia that may not be suitable for ownership. Joe was in love.

I called it from the third day we had Bella with us and I told Joe so. "That is your dog, dude! You know it," I said to him.

"No, no, no! I've got Jake [an Australian shepherd so hopped up on life it was hard to tell the back end from the front and all you can see is a blur of blue merle and flashes of white] and he's plenty! I've got a lot of work to do on him," he kept saying.

"I know," I told him pointing at Bella cowering in her kennel run. "But THAT is your new dog... sucka! You LOVE her."

"No. No, I don't," he said to me curtly as he pretended to storm out of the training room... with Bella in tow!

Joe took possession of Bella on his birthday and gladly paid the fee (an excessive fee in my opinion but the director of the rescue demanded that Robin tell us she wanted us to PAY for the pup despite the fact the we had boarded, bathed and trained the dog for several days at our own expense; some rescues just don't "get it"). For the next few weeks, she blossomed, still puked in the car and got a bit nervous when new things happened but she became a little lady.

Fast forward to today... Bella lives in great comfort and luxury with Joe in Buffalo, NY. She goes to an island dog park a few times a week and Joe often expresses concern for her time spent alone. He is afraid she is a bit lonely at his grad school apartment after living with him at his folk's place where dogs and awesome people are abundant and cheerful. Bella wakes Joe up by slapping his face... and he loves it. I guess Joe is a sucker too; I taught him a bit too well.

Bella came a long way from the scared pup we first met. She now chases squirrels with a vengeance and occasionally tries to go on wilderness adventures when they visit Joe's folks on their 20 acres in Upstate NY. She bosses other dogs around and has found her "inner wolf" expressing such with the wildest barkety-bark you have ever heard. She is just fine now and has a great life with Joe. I'm so pleased that they found each other, but I am a bit jealous 'cause Bella turned out to be a really cool chick-dog. Frankly, I would have wanted her for myself had I not had the two big Rotties and silly bullydog I had at the time. She reminds me of the really cool dogs you would meet at Grateful Dead shows that just tra-la-la-ed around the parking lot for a day or so until it was time to pack up and head to the next show. She's just a really cool nature girl. And she's really pretty. But she does have a huge ass.

Joe called me last week to tell me that his girlfriend Anna had found a Pit bull mix in the parking lot at her work. The parking lot apparently was an unlikely location for a dog dump as it is a secured lot but it is close to some sketchy neighborhoods. We dog-types always get a bit nervous when you find a bully-type near sketchy areas. Micheal Vick was NOT an unusual occurrence with Pit owners unfortunately. You always get a bit worried about who is taking the dog back and what exactly they are going to do with it. Joe and Anna determined that the dog was well cared for, in heat, probably lost and made great efforts to find her owner. Joe called to me get some input. The best I could do was ask him if he was going to name the dog Merry, Holly or Noel.

"Oh, no! We're calling her Girl. If I name her I'm gonna wind up keeping her. Anna's got a dog. I've got Bella. I DON'T need another dog."

This arguement sounded very familiar to me.

"Okay, dude," I said calmly, "Give Merry a pat for me and keep me posted."

"That's not funny," he snickered and hung up on me.

I was pretty sure Joe was keeping that dog, but it turned out she was a runaway from a nice family who cried when they were reunited. Joe and Anna did a great thing by keeping her safe and helping her get home. They even took her to the vet to get a rabies booster "just in case." I'm usually pretty bang-on about these "love matches" and frankly I was surprised the Joe and Anna didn't get a new dog named Merry/Holly/Noel for Christmas. There's still two weeks until Christmas. Maybe I can find them and unhousebroken, unneutered male Mastif with bad gas and a salivary problem and get it wrapped up for them. They could call him Stinky. Knowing Joe, he would make the best out of it and probably rename the dog Lemonade!

I really look forward to a life full of these updates and weird dog exchanges with Joe and his budding family. He is a great guy, a truly gifted dog trainer (though he's going to be an engineer! Hrumph!) and a good friend. I hope he's not too mad that I took the piss out of him a bit on the blog but I know he's following this blog and I just can't resist!

Sorry, Joe Rocks! You can let me have it about my ultra-mini breed Daisy any time you want. Oh, and Ella bought her a pet Snuggie for Christmas.

Oh, YOU shut up!

LOL