Grue!

Today I went and got my new dog, Grue.

More specifically, on Friday I went out to Austin to see K-the-knitter and Mr. K, stayed with them until this morning, when I drove out to Seguin to meet up with Grue's foster mom. Seguin is roughly the midpoint between Aggieland and the city I adopted Grue from, and her foster mom was very kind to meet me there.

Well, the first thing I noticed is that she's a bit bigger than I was expecting - more like a 35 lb dog than a 20 lb dog, though honestly that's okay by me. She weighs around the same as Maggie, maybe a little lighter actually, but their personalities are very different.

Maggie is a very outgoing, friendly dog. If she sees you, she wants to go to you, and she wants you to pet her (quite a lot, please, and perhaps some belly rubs?). Her tail is always wagging, and she is always smiling.

Grue is (at least so far) a very anxious dog. Quite frankly, she's not as well socialized; though she's very sweet to people, her initial reaction to most things is fear and avoidance, then curiosity if it doesn't look like it's going to come after her. She's very quiet, I haven't heard her make a single sound yet (aside from one time, she burped), and all she really seems to want to do is lay down, not too far from people, preferably on the couch once she realized she was allowed to get up there. She does not like her crate (it's a bit small, have to get a bigger one, I was expecting a smaller dog), but she has eaten and drunk and, eventually, peed on the grass outside. Granted, it took me carrying her down the stairs and twenty minutes of her sniffing and cowering every time a bird called or a car passed before she would pee, and another ten minutes of me coaxing her back up the stairs and into my apartment, but she did have a successful 'walk'.

Grue's mom said that she isn't 'used to a leash'. This seems really weird to me - were they not walking their rescue dogs? Who does that? She was content to stick close to me, which is good, that will teach her to walk next to me when she gets more confident, but I do wish she'd been exposed to more things as a puppy.

All in all, I'm still very happy with her. She is a super sweet dog, and not loud or hyper like I feared. Hastur and the Library Overlord came by to see her, as well as Mr. Friend-Ex (I figure that name will work as well as anything else? We really are remaining friends) and a buddy of his, and we all hung out and had fun and pizza. Grue even got a pepperoni or two, because I am not above shameless bribery. I took a bunch of pictures with my phone, but I'm too tired right now to upload and post them, so you get to wait.

Me, I've got a puppy to snuggle with.