Puppy Troubles

Mr. Sweetie and I are moving in about a month, and we keep getting shot down on what kind of dog we can get. First, no rental agency in town will accept staffordshire/pit bulls, dobermans, or rottweilers. Annoying, but understandable, considering the unfair rep these breeds have. This means, Kaylee's puppies are going to have to find a different home than us - I cried for days about this, since I love Kaylee, and I love pits, and you bet your ass I tried to find a place that was in our space/financial range that accepted pits, but to no avail.

So we went on to other dogs, and other breeds. As it turns out, for insurance purposes "pit bull" is defined to mean "any stocky dog with a square-ish head", cutting out most bully breeds, boxers, and a whole lot else. Son of a bitch! We had been looking at American Bulldogs on Petfinder.com at that point, and had found a few that we wanted to meet, and there goes that idea. So, no bulls at all. Okay.

Our next idea was catahoulas. They're hounds, but still have a lot of the things that I love about pits - intelligence, eager to please, and that wonderful smile. We start looking through Petfinder again, and happen to come across some catahoula/aussie mixes - score! Mr. Sweetie loves aussies, so this was a great compromise, a dog that would appeal to both of us. (to be fair, he wanted a beagle mix, but I've had too many bad beagle experiences to feel entirely comfortable around them, which is why I jumped at the aussie mix. That mean dog that chased me every day for over a year? Beagle. Just sayin'.)

Finally, we found a place we love, love, LOVE! It's a duplex with a yard, only a tiny bit smaller than the place we have now (and we got a really awesome deal on the place we have now, so it's not like we expected to get that luck again), but they nixed (by name) most popular large dog breeds ESPECIALLY "aggressive" and "shephard" dogs. Grah! Now neither pits nor aussies! I can dig the whole "not a big duplex" thing, and the "high energy and/or giant dogs = more damage" thing, but it's damned inconvenient.

I asked if they had any other requirements we should know about. What do you know, they do! They prefer the dogs to be over 2 years old, and under 30 lbs. I'm not sure how strong this "preference" is, whether it's honestly just a preference that could be set aside for the case of a specific dog, or whether it's another ironclad rule, just worded differently. Still waiting to hear back on that, should know by tomorrow. We did put a deposit on the house, so we ARE going to be living there, whatever kind of dog we get

So, it was back to petfinder for us. This time, I'm thinking small, I'm thinking smart, I'm thinking active, and not a dachshund or chihuahua. They're great dogs I'm sure, just not my cup of tea. Hastur's dachshund is the only dachshund I have met who is a really great dog, didn't pee everywhere or hate everyone. Chihuahas, I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally pet their buggy eyes and get eye-goo all over me and maybe hurt them. Also, no dogs that are smaller than Heed.

So I started thinking... corgi?

A friend of mine has a corgi/aussie mix, and we just love him. He's my favorite of her two dogs, even over the full aussie, so I plug it into Petfinder. And guess who I found? A corgi/catahoula mix! While catahoulas were not on the restricted breed list, they are big dogs, and this one has the short stubby body of the corgi, and the coloring and much of the face of the catahoula. Want to see her? I know that you do.

Click me!

What's great, she's in Katy, which is where my parents live, so I'd be able to go down there and pick her up and immediately show her off!

I filled out the pre-adoption thing just in case, and am waiting to hear back from the folks we're renting from. I figure a dog that will stay small, but is young, would be more acceptable than one of the larger dogs they didn't restrict who was over 2 years old. It still makes me sad that we can't get Grue-the-pit-bull, but Grue-the-corgi is still pretty awesome.