The Pet Sitter of Boise sitters are active volunteers in many animal related organizations.
Julie fosters dogs from The Idaho Humane Society’s IDAPI program. Inmates from a local prison train the dogs to make them more adoptable.
Julie fostered Circus for 4 months. He was so naughty every time a potential adopter looked at him, that nobody adopted him. H was just full of goofy antics! It was so bad that Circus went back to the prison for a second round of training and manner reinforcement!
The second time was a charm and Circus was adopted my an amazing woman, planning on having him trained to be her service dog. Well, seems like that is not going to work out, but I want to share this heart warming update I got from his mom….
Good morning!
I thought I would send out a quick email and give you both “The Circus Update.”
We are absolutely smitten with him! He is such a hunk, and he Looooooves his kitties
(Although, he gets a little jealous when they are cuddling with me in “his spot.”)
We have had 2 service dog classes so far, and they just love him over there. He is super smart, eager to learn, and has won over everyone he meets.
Unfortunately, on Sunday, we had him x-rayed at the trainer’s suggestion to make sure that he is physically sound enough to be a Mobility dog, since it requires helping support Angela. We were informed by the vet that he has hip dysplasia on both sides, but worse on the left. This means that he won’t be able to be a service dog, but doesn’t change what an awesome boy he is.
We were pretty devastated to think that this happy dog is going to have to deal with some pretty bad pain down the road, but have started him on supplements to help keep the problem under control, and are going to start saving up just in case he may need NSAIDs or hip replacement surgery down the road. He was already spoiled, but now he pretty much gets “dibs” on the heated blanket, because it is supposed to help with the problem. J We are also trying to track down someone with an indoor or heated pool that will let him swim in it, because hydrotherapy is supposed to do wonders in cases like this.
We plan on still going through training with him, though we now we want to get him certified as a Therapy Dog. He loves learning and meeting new people so much that we really feel he will do great, and plan on talking to the trainer about it at our session tonight.
The mixed blessing in all of this is that we are now looking into buying a larger house with a yard, so that we can get a second dog down the road to be Circus’s buddy, and Ang’s Service Dog. We feel very lucky that we got to be the ones to adopt him, because Ang has a very intimate knowledge of what it is like to be in pain. We are going to do everything we can to keep him as happy and healthy as possible, and look forward to many great years ahead with our goofy, oversized lap-dog.
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