Hello,
I adopted Argyle
(formerly Bane) from your shelter September 18 of last year. I wanted to send
you an update on how he is doing :)
When I first adopted
him, he didn't know any basic commands and was a bit...well….crazy. He was 76
lbs of INSANE and I loved every bit of it. A lot of my friends and family were
worried he would be "too much dog" for me. Well, as a team, we proved
them wrong.
We had a rough go at it
the first few months. I was still living in a condo and commuting to work. We
got two hours of outside exercise in every day, but it still wasn't enough. He
was getting into a lot of trouble. I was learning all about giant rambunctious
dog ownership. So, we enlisted in dog school at the Canine Academy in Moffat.
Turns out, Argyle is a very fast learner and he graduated the program with high
scores across the board. Exercise was still an issue though. I made the
decision last winter to find tenants for my condo and I moved us to huge barn
apartment on a horse farm in Fergus. This is where life changed for the better.
Because Argyle mastered his recall skills and the apartment is half a kilometre
from the road, he's allowed to play off leash on the property. The neighbours'
dogs all come to see him on a regular basis and they have a blast (luckily, he
never goes to the neighbours' houses). Around the same time, my office
relocated to a farm in Aberfoyle. Life got DOUBLE good. Argyle comes to work
with me every day. He has his own electric fence collar and roams the farm
freely. He comes in and out as he pleases, gets walked at lunch every day and
even participates in our conference calls.
Argyle is also a
fantastic runner. We've always casually jogged from the beginning, but in the
spring, I started to train seriously for competitive racing. Argyle is my
number 1 training buddy. He has joined me on runs up to 21 KM in length and by
the end, he's the one pulling me forward. In August, we raced the Highland
Games 10 KM TOGETHER! There's a picture in the collage attached.
So, we had a rough start
but we've learned a lot from each other and adjusted nicely. Argyle is now 10
lbs heavier (it's all muscle, the vet applauded his physique this summer), he
knows his commands and then some (actually knows all his toys by name), he's a
competitive runner (he he) and is as healthy as can be. He loves to snuggle on
the couch once the sun goes down and his best friend is my tortoise shell,
Murry.
Adopting Argyle was the
best decision I ever made. I had no idea what I was in for, but we made it work
with lots of love and dedication! I can't imagine life without him now. Thank
you so so so very much for having faith in me as a parent and adopting him out
to me. He's a poster dog for why people should adopt and we promote adoption
all the time.
Best Regards,
Kathleen and Argyle
