The Pup Report - Enter Hanna

Yes, it was indeed barely a week later when I was speaking with one of our favorite clients (and now a great friend!), Gina LaGalbo, L’BRI Consultant Extraordinaire, and she told me about this DOG.

As she relayed the story to me, I was relaying the story to Chuck: black lab, 5-years-old, 60#, purebred, needs a home, owner can’t keep her. He could basically do nothing but put his shaking head into his hands. He knew that this was the universe aligning and that something providential was about to happen. But it’s tough – remember, he just put down his 17-year-old lab Samantha ().

According to Gina, Hanna, the DOG, really needs us. It seems that her current owner is a struggling mom of two little kids under four who is going through a divorce and who is struggling to manage her day to day life, let alone a big dog. She has been looking for someone for some time and has been pretty selective about the person/people that she feels will be a good fit for Hanna. Gina arranges for a conversation….

And the conversation goes well….

And now we will meet…..

Hanna arrives in our driveway – in full glory – in the back of a very red SUV. As the tailgate is opened, we are greeted with an excited, hyper, panting, frantic 75 POUND dog who is about to relieve her current owner of her arm via yanking it from its socket.

Well, no… that really didn’t happen. But let’s just say that her 100 lb. owner was being tossed like a rag doll from the boundless energy known as Hanna. In addition to the panting so loud it was nearly a sonic boom, we had two children under the age of four that came with their mother who obviously had a lot in common with Hanna.  

No, they weren’t panting – but their energy was also boundless and the panting was replaced with shrieking – sometimes in glee, sometimes in fear of Stardust, the much smaller but equally energetic princess of our house who promptly decided she MUST lick and jump on those children knocking one of them down leading to more shrieking.

We will call this chaos... or bedlam... or you choose the word…

Thinking we must somehow get this situation under control, I kindly suggested to Chuck that he should TAKE THE DOG DOWN THE STREET FOR A WALK, which he did.

Better.

He returned in a few minutes with Hanna in a calmer state (although still seriously in need of some doggy Valium) and we chatted for a few minutes about her life thus far.

What we learned:

• She’s had no training but was bred for duck hunting
• She’s never been duck hunting
• She’s purebred with papers
• She’s left sometimes 18 hours a day
• She’s gated in the kitchen most of the time
• She sleeps wherever she wants to
• She’s really sweet when she has calmed down
• She has a big tongue
• She was listed on Craigslist and there were multiple calls, a few visits but no takers  

OK, we’re feeling like she needs us. We tell her owner that we’ll consider her but need to meet her again, perhaps at a dog park.

I bet you can’t wait for that story…..

to be continued….