Introducing Luke and Leia

Luke and Leia were first rescued by New Rattitude back in 2012. About 3 weeks ago their adopter had contacted New Rattitude about returning them and was going to use New Rattitude's ReHome program. In ReHome instead of the dog coming into foster care and filling up a foster space the owner continues to care for the dog in their home but we list them for adoption and do our adoption screening when applications come in. It's a win for both the dogs and us in that the dog doesn't have an extra transition they have to deal with and we can use our foster spots for dogs currently at risk in the shelter.

Four days after we were told they were going to be enrolled in the program we were surprisingly contacted by a shelter to let us know that they had two of our former foster dogs in their care. Luke and Leia had been taken to a shelter. Much scrambling took place to find foster spots and then Seuss was adopted, leaving an opening here for a new dog. So on the 13th I drove to Bremerton and met a volunteer who brought them from Port Angeles to transfer them to New Rattitude.

Chima meeting Luke

So far things are going really well. Introductions with my crew were super easy and there has been no snarking from Luke and Leia and just a bit of the expected corrections from my dogs. They have learned to let new foster dogs know from the beginning what they will and won't tolerate and Luke and Leia have been very good natured about things like Chima's rule that butt sniffs cannot last longer than 3 seconds and Sal's rule that under no circumstances will any dog be allowed to hump her without hell's fury being unleashed upon them.

Chima meeting Leia - both girls had really great body language and loose, waggly tails.

Of course we are in the honeymoon period so it is likely as they learn that they are safe here and start to relax we might have a few behavior things to work through but for now it's going well.

Leia

Luke

Coming up I'll tell you a little more about each of them but for now the basics are that both dogs are now about 9 years old. Luke weighs 26# and should be about 23# and Leia weighs 24# and should weigh closer to 20#. Neither of them should live with cats. While we don't have their paperwork they appear to be purebred Rat Terriers and have docked tails and upright ears. Stay tuned...

Leia and Luke making themselves at home