Please welcome Dodger to my little extended family.  In May of this year, I dedicated a post to my mom’s dog Marble, who after 16 years had to leave us.  Over the past few months, my mom has been ready to bring another dog in her life.  She knew she wanted a smaller dog, and one that she could keep in the house.  After a few months of looking and searching, she found this small bit of fur at East Baton Rouge Parish’s Animal Control.

My mom is a big believer in adopting a dog (as am I) to save a life.  In this instance, it was a two-fer.  Unfortunately at this time EBR’s shelter is a kill shelter, and if an animal isn’t adopted in an allotted amount of time, they must be put down regardless of health.  Not only does adopting Dodger save his life, it gave another dog a reprieve to have another day to be adopted.  EBR is working on changing this, and I hope they are able to soon.  If I lived in the parish, I would vote to make that change.  Unfortunately, we don’t.  So this is a way that we can help make a difference for the time being.

Anyhow, back to Dodger.  He met Mom’s wishes, small (only 15 pounds), young (about a year), and adorable (just look at that face!).  He met my one requirement as well (not that it really matters): he’s big enough to hold his own against Sal, my mom’s big, all black, inside tom cat.

From the stories my Mom has told me already and her Facebook updates, it looks like she’s going to have her hands full with this adorable bit of canine cleverness.  He’s already housebroken (hurray!), learns commands quickly, and is overly enthusiastic.  He has learned how to play by himself by throwing a favorite toy in the air and chasing it.  This makes my mom laugh.  Don’t think she doesn’t play with him.  She does.

However, much of her time is taken up with trying to make sure he doesn’t chew everything up in the house.  He is a chewer.  A prolific chewer.  He’s already ruined the plastic chew toys she’s gotten him, gone through 2 nylabones, and chewed up a plastic water dish she was using.  He’s now limited to a new, less destructible water dish and rope toys (which he doesn’t chew up quickly). Every day this week that I’ve talked to my parents on the phone, there is yet another Dodger story.  From what I can tell, there is going to be lots of fun ahead as he settles into his new home.

Well fun for my parents and Dodger.  Jack the cat still isn’t so pleased about the situation.