Lolly-less

So our attempt to give Boogie a brother failed miserably.

As I wrote about before, we adopted a very cute, senior dog after falling in love with him and his story at an animal shelter. I named him Lolly after my favorite Schoolhouse Rock episode. He’s 12, but had the energy of a much younger dog. His only owner had passed away, leaving him without a home. We wanted to give him a nice home for his retirement years.

Things got off to a rocky start. After we adopted him I had to gout of town for three days, during which the new dog raised holy hell while home with my boyfriend and Boogie. Barking, scratching and hurling himself at doors, escaping from the house and running down the street – the gamut! But when I returned, despite my boyfriend’s exasperation, I was sure that it was just an adjustment period, and that we could make it work. Lolly gave me his perfect “Who me? Make trouble? I’m the sweetest dog ever!” face, and I was determined to smooth things over. We studied dog behavior, got a trainer, did everything we thought was right.

But after days (and then weeks) of Lolly barking, pawing doors until his paws bled and howling every time he was left alone – or even when he wasn’t alone, but was separated from us by a dog gate – the dog trainer gave us her assessment: it wasn’t separation anxiety. The dog was simply pissed off. He had never been left alone before, and he wasn’t going to put up with that happening now.

The trainer said we could try to work on that, but curing the problem would be hard, if not impossible, at his age. Since we were weeks away from moving into an apartment, where barking would not be tolerated, we knew our home wasn’t right for him. Most importantly, he hurt himself when he was alone. He would have bloody paws from digging at the door even if he was alone for only an hour. Even if Boogie was with him. We work everyday – and leaving Lolly all day would essentially be endangering him.

Tearfully, we decided to return him to the shelter. I was expecting judgment, banishment from their adoption services, and goodness knows what else. Instead, the shelter folks were understanding and more – they said we did the exact right thing. We’d done all we could – spent over $1,000 in vet fees, dog training services, supplies and food for him in the time we had him. If our home wasn’t right, it’s better to let him find the perfect home than to keep him in an imperfect situation.

I still cried for days. I felt like I failed him, even though objectively I knew I didn’t. We won’t be notified where he is ultimately placed, but I pray he finds a great home with a retiree, or someone who works at home, or a house with lots of people to love and care for the pooch. And never leave him alone. He has many, many years of life ahead of him (the vet said he’s healthy as an ox), and I hope they are happy ones.

As for Boogie, he was a trooper through all of the chaos! I was so proud of him. He never complained, he always tried to play with Lolly, and otherwise stayed out of the way of Lolly’s wrath. But, I have to say, since we returned Lolly, Boogie has been in the best mood of his life!