New Addition To The Family!

Welcome, California Sky!  Aka "Callie."  This sweet girl takes tidbits carefully, never letting her teeth touch your fingers.  No doggie smell!  No doggie breath!

Around September 1, 2020, this photo, which appeared on our online neighborhood network, appeared with a desperate plea of needing to rehome a niece's three-year old hound mix (b. August 19, 2017).  She likely has Labrador Retriever in there, too:

Callie, with her favorite toy, on Mr. AOW's hospital bed:

The original owner was told that Callie is a Pocket Beagle. Clearly, she is not! But she was very small when first adopted — because Callie was taken from her mama dog at 3.5 weeks:

As Callie got older, she grew and grew and grew:

When svelte, Callie had lovely lines:

Now Callie is fat! I've put her on a reducing diet.

And Callie is so strong! Until I got an Easy Walk Harness, she was walking me!  The third day of her trial run here, she suddenly lunged on the leash — so suddenly that she dragged me through one of our oak Adirondack chairs and across the front porch! The chair did not fare well; neither did I. My bruises and soreness are almost all gone now, though.

Worse: Callie has never been properly housebroken. I got some help from the owner's aunt, a dog expert, and from some reliable dog-training sites on the web, and have been working a plan (tether time, crate time, confined area, etc.). Housebreaking is coming along well.

The saddest thing about this dog is that nobody picked up on her near-deafness!  It's bad!  I'm going to find out if I learned anything by studying the methods and triumphs of my role model, Annie Sullivan.  Heh.

I'm working on teaching Callie a few simple hand signals, and she's quickly learning them.  My father used to say, "Hounds are either very smart or very stupid."  Callie is smart!  And she so wants to please, now that she's bonded with us.

After the three-week trial period, we've decided to keep Callie.  She has a tether and a zipline in the yard, and the doghouse is in place.  She respects baby gates, so our kitties Amber and Minxy have their catuary in the master bedroom.  They watch Callie through the baby gate.  Gradually introducing them is the best way.