It's a Boy!

I proudly introduce to you Sir Charles Owen Buckett (the Rapp is Silent)*:

Part Cocker Spaniel-part Poodle, he asserts his individuality by insisting upon being called a Cocker Doodle instead of the expected Cockapoo.

This little guy is about two years old, and we decided his birthday was yesterday.  My mother's cousin works for an animal rescue, and she forwarded us the information on him.  He was rescued from a high-kill shelter (which seems an oxymoron, as the word shelter evokes images in my mind of protection and comfort), but this particular establishment is known for saying buh-bye to animals for no good reason.  We don't know how or why he ended up there, but we do know he experienced some neglect--take a look at these before shots sent to us by his initial rescuers/foster parents:

If you look closely at the first picture, you can see a mass of hair at the bottom of his right ear.  They told us that when they had him cleaned up and trimmed, a matted wad of dog fur the size of a softball was clipped from that area.  And in the second photo--doesn't he look like he has 4 casts on?  All in all, this dog lost 3 pounds of hair!!! 

How can anyone resist this? After at least 6 hours of grooming he looks so much better.  Six MINUTES of getting my hair done is too much for me, but 6 hours for a dog!  I can't believe the inhumanity that got him to the point where he needed such attention.  I also like the fabric of that cushion he's sitting on.  Just putting that out there....

He's settling in fine and getting used to us.  Last night he just laid in his cage and stared at the front door, waiting for his foster daddy to come back.  Tonight he's in his cage whining and crying to get out....I'm pretty sure this will be the last night in the cage.  We were just keeping him in there until we got a better sense of his...I'll call them bathroom habits.  He follows my mother around like a dog (haha), and tolerates the rest of us and our craziness quite well.  I told him that he can go anywhere except my sewing corner, and the only shoes I'll be upset about if he chews are my green shoes.  He's a little jumpy and is curious about every little sound.  Methinks he never had the chance to be a true puppy--he never learned how to play.  He doesn't fetch and seems to think you're punishing him when you take a toy and throw it across the room--he doesn't get it yet that he's supposed to go and bring it back.  

He did have one super-crazy moment tonight.  We went out to the yard and were just trying to get him to play just a little bit, when he took off doing laps around the yard.  He galloped like a racehorse, did figure-eights, jumped from the top porch steps out into the yard, and so on, like a madman, for a good five minutes straight.  Then he just stopped and laid down.  And that was it.  But he was so precise in his turns and what he was doing that it was like watching a well-trained dog herd sheep.  It makes me very curious about who he used to be.

Here's a few more pieces of cute:

He looks like a stuffed animal here, nice and soft and cuddly. And he loves to cuddle--an excellent feature in a dog.

 I kept trying to get him to look at me for a close-up and he rolled his eyes.  How adorable.  He's tired of me already. :)

  I started making weird noises to try and get him to do that head-tilt thing dogs do, but he just got up and walked away.

He made himself comfortable right away.  I wish I could be out that quickly.

So that's what I did today.  I finished up any sewing work I had yesterday because I'm away for the weekend in Chicago for a wedding.  Hopefully I'll have pics to share upon my return.  Have a fabulous weekend!

* Choosing a name was the hardest part. My sister Alicia wanted to name him after several Lost characters.  I wanted to name him Uncle Jessie from Full House. My brother thinks he should be called Scott Baio.  I then changed my mind to Owen.  Charlie seemed to be the only name we could all agree on, so we fancied it up a bit.  When my sister Rachel stopped by tonight and started calling him Charlie  Buckett, we knew we had his full name.  My dad said "What about Rapp? Why isn't his last name Rapp?" to which Rachel replied "The Rapp is silent."  I don't know about everyone else but I'm going to make that last part an official part of his name.