Busy dog day

Today was a busy day for our two boys!  First, a lady came over to our house this morning to evaluate our home to foster a dog.  This dog was rescued from a shelter in Fredericksburg and I found out about him from a friend of a friend.   He is 13 years old (supposedly...he seemed younger to me.) and his owner dumped him when her landlord said she couldn't have a dog.  After we got evaluated, we went and met him.  His name is Boomer.  I was a bit nervous about it because Topher is not crazy about other dogs.  This dog is a pit bull mix.  He is about Topher's size and surprisingly, Topher was really interested in him and really liked him!  We went to a park together and Topher, Boomer, and Tanker walked on a trail together side by side.

I said that we didn't need something extra on our plates right now.  We were asked to raise a lab puppy for Veterans Moving Forward to be a service dog for a wounded veteran not too long ago and we turned down the opportunity for the time being because we were busy training our dogs.  It seemed too overwhelming to me to add a third at the time.  I still feel that raising and training a puppy is too much for us at the moment until Wes can get through his upcoming test for work, we can get settled into our therapy dog volunteer roles, and life settles down a little.  Boomer already has obedience training, he is good with dogs, kids, and cats, and he will only be staying with us until he gets adopted.  The benefit for Topher is that he is gentle and it gives Topher another dog to trust.  This, I hope, will build Topher's confidence in bigger dogs.  Once Boomer gets adopted, we are going to look into raising a puppy to be a service dog for Veterans Moving Forward.

We did not bring Boomer home with us today.  The lady who is temporarily fostering him is bringing him over this week to introduce him to our dogs at our house.  She is really nice.  She is going to take Boomer back during the time that our friends, Brent and Amanda, come up to visit with their dogs next month.  Everything seems to be working out perfect in the situation, so I feel like fostering Boomer is the right thing to do.

Onto the next adventure.  After the park, we went to Lowes with Topher and Tanker.  Lowes was really busy!  Topher and Tanker did really well.  Topher really enjoyed watching the forklift.  A lot of dogs go into Lowes to train as therapy/service dogs.  The employees are used to seeing us in there.  The guy operating the forklift made extra noise and did extra moves to get them used to it.  Topher was so interested.  He intently watched the boards being moved from the top shelf to the bottom.  When we moved to the concrete aisle, both Topher and Tanker layed down to watch.  I guess it wasn't so interesting anymore.  That's how laid back they are.  Noises, horns, beeps, boards dropping all around them, and they wanted to nap.

Great day overall!  Topher and Tanker are sacked out.  Wes and I are pretty tired ourselves.

Topher and Tanker's first outing to Lowes as official certified therapy dogs. They got to wear their new vests. Everybody loved them and they did so well!