Keisha

We got Keisha after I got an email from the rescue with all the dogs who needed immediate foster homes. I'm sure anyone involved in a rescue is used to these, each day new dogs need to be taken in and current fosters may need to be re-homed. I forget why Keisha had to be re-homed but when I saw her pictures I almost died. She looked almost identical to Callie! I did a triple take thinking they had put Cal's old pictures up by mistake. Nope, it was a totally different dog but she was the same approximate age, same size, same body type, same colourings, same side-ways folding ears - except I came to notice Keisha's one ear folded more forward then the other making her look a little goofy (and Callie was still prettier of course). I had to meet this dog! Its not often you find your dogs doppelgänger.... Well at least not if you have a Heinz 57! 

The old foster family came to drop Keisha off and we took Cal and Keish for a walk to make sure they were friendly with each other and they got along fine. I remember Keisha STUNK like cigarette smoke. For someone who grow up constantly creating new and interesting campaigns to get her parents to stop smoking, it really made me a bit sick to my stomach. I don't like smoking, but hey if its your thing that's fine,* but I couldn't even imagine in what kind of chain smoking hell would get her fur so completely saturated. It took three shampoos until it was tolerable, and about two weeks for the smell to completely go away!

The twins on some weird doggy adventure together by the river.

Keisha was rrreally skinny but a lot of it was her body type. Like Cal she had long skinny legs and a deep chest which exaggerated her little tummy. She was still underweight. I could count each of her ribs which is never a great thing for a medium coated dog. Putting weight on her was a near impossible task. She loved to run more then anything and her metabolism was set to hyper drive. By the time she left her ribs were slightly more hidden which I'll take as a success. 

She was a complete cuddle bug. The dogs were never allowed on the furniture but it quickly became "Ok not on the couch or chair, but the ottoman is fine." That of course soon turned the entire chair into a free zone but to the dogs record they usually left the couch alone. A lot of dogs like to cuddle, but Keisha wanted to be held. She'd love when you'd hug her while you slept. She would often stick her body underneath mine in an effort to get closer. She was also really smart. She learned all the basics from Callie in an instant, like ringing a bell when she had to go outside. We also have dinner time rules which she picked up without being asked more then once. With my fosters I have no tolerance for food aggression and developed a rule that they must sit (outside the kitchen) and wait to be told to eat rather then have a huge free for all. Pretty much each dog has just kind of accepted it without much effort on my part. This way I could fill all the dishes, but in medicine if it was needed and then monitor each dog and work on any food issues if they happened to have any. One day Ryan but the food in the bowls, asked the two of them to wait and walked into the living room - something we did from time to time to kind of make them work for it. A long while later I came out of the other room and saw Ryan on the computer, busy into something, and no dogs to be found. Unusual considering they were always following us around. I peeked into the kitchen to see both dogs sitting, staring me down, at this point almost shaking in anticipation and a giant pile of drool by their toes. I told them to go ahead and asked Ry how long they'd been waiting. It was a big pile of drool after all. Twenty minutes! He has completely forgot about them and the girls had waited, not even in the same room, for twenty whole minutes! They didn't move an inch!

Keisha finally had a decent application, but the woman lived a two hour drive away. She came to meet her and fell in love. At this point we had had Keisha for quite awhile so it was a sad goodbye when Keish left a week later. But the woman was great. I got lots of updates and stayed in touch. We saw Keisha any pretty soon but I'll post that story later. 

*Unless your Ryan, then the slightly psychotic me rears her ugly head