Abort, retry, fail?

Well, never mind the added family member.

On Sunday we drove to Southern Indiana to pick up a rescue Boston Terrier.  We named him Mango and tried to integrate him with our family.  There were problems however.  He bit Hannah, bit the vet, and snapped at Robby.  Clearly this wasn't working out, so we had to take him back yesterday.

Now, only a 'dog person' can understand how I can say all that and then follow it up with "He was a sweet dog" but the fact is, he was.  He clearly wanted to please everyone.  In the days he was here he spent most of his time sitting loyally by one or another of us, or rolling over to have his belly scratched.  He was quiet as could be when he was crated, and clearly had had some degree of training before.  But he also had some previous issues and was very edgy with sudden movements or people coming up behind him.  There were extenuating circumstances behind each incident (our vet even apologized to US for what happened) but the fact remained, that this dog, sweet as he was, needed a calm, quiet house to work through his issues, and this is the one thing that we simply could not give him.  Hannah and Robby are just too young and excitable and we'd have been constantly worrying about what the dog would do.  We wanted a safe, comfortable family dog that we wouldn't have to worry about.  This was not the match we wanted.

He went back to his foster family who are wonderful, so we feel good about that.  But it was sad.  Faith especially really was very mature around him and very interested.  She'll be a good one to train the dog we eventually end up getting, whenever that is.

So, on to the next set of crises I suppose.

Matt