O'Hara stayed with me for a week during which she had her spay surgery. I've got another foster, Hillary, so O'Hara is now with a foster mom who lives just a few blocks from me. Here's what I can tell you about O'Hara in the week she was with me.
She met dogs Trina (7 pounds) and Holly (28 pounds) and was wonderful with both of them. She is wonderful with all the people she has met. She greets everyone with a wagging tail and a happy approach. She is very good about being brushed and seems to really enjoy it.
She does like to be around people or other dogs. We put her in a crate downstairs by herself her first night here and she fussed (cried and barked some). Since then she's been sleeping at the foot of my daughter's bed. She finds a comfy spot and sleeps soundly until my daughter gets up...or until I wake them both up which is usually the case. Teenagers and summer time means lots of sleeping late.
As she was healing from her spay surgery we kept her in the guest room if we left the house. We wanted to keep her contained so she wouldn't run or jump and upset her sutures. She did fuss some in the guest room too. I do think that she likes having another dog or person around and that she can get anxious if she's completely alone. Perhaps if we had given her the run of the house she wouldn't have fussed. It could also have been that she hadn't had enough time to get comfortable in our house. Her Alabama foster mom says O'Hara never fussed, but there were other dogs in the house.
O'Hara's Alabama foster mom said that O'Hara doesn't care for walking on a leash. I'd say that O'Hara loves the freedom of the backyard but that she actually walks very nicely on a leash. She and I walked about a mile today and she was wonderful. She is a terrier though and if she sees a squirrel or a rabbit she will pull. But, that's common for terriers...hey, even my own dogs do it. I'll add that her first day here I took her for a walk early in the morning and of all things we saw a coyote about 20 yards in front of us. O'Hara just stopped and stared as the coyote didn't skip a beat and continued trotting towards us and then into the brush near the creek. She didn't bark, didn't pull, didn't get anxious, just watched. Good girl.
Outside of fussing when we have left her we haven't heard her bark. She hasn't barked when the doorbell rang or when the other dogs have barked.
Granted she was recovering from her spay most of the days she was here so her activity level was lower than normal she was pretty content to just hang out next to my desk while I worked during the day. In the evening she'll find an open dog bed and relax while the family watches TV.
She does like to be in the yard and likes to look for chipmunks under the bushes. Her Alabama foster mom says that O'Hara would sit patiently still and wait and wait for action in the bushes. She never actually caught anything though.
For the week that O'Hara was here she never had one accident in the house and for the three weeks that O'Hara was with her Alabama foster mom she never had one accident either. We can safely say she is housebroken. She is very good about doing all her potties outside.
I don't have cats so I can't tell you how she does with them but her Alabama foster mom reported that O'Hara ignored the cats during the three weeks she was there.
O'Hara has a beautiful soft coat. She is a gorgeous dog. The vet who examined her believes she is a West Highland White Terrier mix. I would completely agree. She has those adorable Westie ears and wonderfully soft coat of white. There are a fewspots of tan towards her back end. We don't know what she is mixed with but likely something bigger than a Westie as she is larger and more athletic than a typical Westie. She does shed some.
We have found that O'Hara likes canned food. She will eat dry kibble but prefers it mixed with some canned. She shows no food aggression and is fine being fed around other dogs. She took her post-spay medicine easily when it was wrapped in a small bit of turkey or hot dog. She takes treats politely.
The story we understand is that O'Hara's original owners moved and left her with a woman who looked after her for a few weeks but realized that she could not afford to keep her. That woman then turned her into a shelter. Fortunately, almost all Fluffy Dogs come from shelters in Alabama and our partners down there found out about O'Hara and quickly got her into a foster home until she could make the journey up north. Now here she waits, waiting for her forever family to come for her.
Here's a little more about what O'Hara's Alabama foster mom had to say-
"I love all my fosters but some are more special. O'Hara is one of the more special ones. I would be begging to keep her if I didn't already have 6 dog-children. I am really going to miss Miss O'Hara"
Thanks for reading and thanks for thinking rescue!
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF O'HARA
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| With Holly and Trina |
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| Such a gorgeous girl |
