Home at last: Chima's adopted!

Chima's adopted! And she's staying right here.

When thinking about adopting another dog I had a big list of requirements before I'd adopt. It was important to me that any new dog in our house have good dog to dog communication skills since we have so many dogs that move through our house. At the same time I wanted to adopt a dog that had less of a chance finding a home. The final wish in my list was purely superficial, but I really love the large standard Rat Terriers and hoped for a larger Rat.

Then along came Chima. At first I wasn't too sure about her. She definitely wasn't sure about me and we spent a lot of time looking at each other from across the room, trying to size each other up. Chima had not been a house dog before and hadn't had a lot of experience with humans. She is a beautiful regal dog and she had a way of looking at me from across the yard, snout slightly lifted, body still but relaxed, that made me feel like a peasant being sized up by royalty. 

But over the last six months she's slowly come to the decision that I'm not half bad as far as humans go. We've done daily work getting her more comfortable with touch and she's come a long way - from not wanting to be on the same side of the room as me to enjoying lying next to me and getting ear massages on the couch. 

With that touch work we've built a strong connection and I realized she fit all those contradictory requirements that I had listed in my head about who our next dog would be. We hadn't thought about adding to our furry family for another couple years but she showed up ahead of schedule I guess. Chima was that next dog I had been thinking about for awhile.

So after 7 months in foster care, Chima is now officially adopted and she's staying right here and becoming part of the Brown family pack. We've still got lots of work ahead of us so watch for more posts about her in the months ahead.

I hate the term "foster failure" since I don't find it cute and it sounds pretty negative, in my opinion. To me any foster dog who finds a loving home is a foster success, whether that home is with their foster family or with someone else. So Chima is just another foster success who we will get to share many more years with. We've devoted our family to giving her the best home that we can be for her. Here's to many happy years with this wonderfully silly dog.