This morning we made the very difficult decision to return Buddha to the shelter. :c It was a decision that neither Mason or I took lightly and were very torn about, but in the end decided it was best for both us and the dog.

Over the last week and a half, Buddha's behavior was becoming progressively worse each day and the more we tried to train him. He seemed to have some separation anxiety so he'd follow us every where we went, even if one of us just got up off the sofa and went across the room. He freaked out every time we'd leave the room or bar him from a certain part of the house for any reason, especially when we put him to bed in his crate for the night. He began chewing and destroying things while we were gone for the day and he was alone in the basement, which presented a significant problem because neither of us wanted to be forced to crate him during the nights as well as for the 8+ hours we were away at work.

He had also begun growling, barking, and acting a bit aggressively to get attention or when he was begging for table scraps. It wasn't outright hostility -- he wasn't baring his teeth or lunging but the growling still made me really nervous. He also snapped at Mason one night when we put him in a time-out for growling too much. Not to mention the way Buddha reacted when he saw wild rabbits outside during our walks made it fairly guaranteed that he never would have been able to be trusted for a moment around Toby's gated door.

The biggest issue was that Buddha was simply too active. He was going-going-going all the time. We took him for a walk or two a day, played with him constantly inside, and let him out in the backyard and nothing could tire him out. Neither Mason or I are extraordinarily active -- we enjoy computers and video games and movies. We just don't have the lifestyle or hobbies to have given him the proper care or exercise he needed. In the long run both us and the puppy would have ended up unhappy with the situation.

Mason and I talked about it late last week and decided to think about it over the weekend, but we both decided today that we just weren't the right home for him. It was really hard to bring him back. I cried in the car. He's already back up on the Humane Society website and I hope he gets adopted into the right family that can give him what he needs. We've concluded that it turns out neither of us are dog people, as much as we both tried and wanted to be, and donated all of Buddha's toys and belongings to the shelter as well. No more dogs for us.

We may try a more mellow sort of pet in the future (maybe a cat?) that's suited to our life, but nothing has been decided yet. All my love to Buddha, and I hope he finds his forever home.

May I introduce the newest member of the Huffman-Saunders household... BUDDHA!

*Socutelovelovelove*

Okay, so he's not really a puppy so much as a 2-year-old Beagle Cardigan Welsh Corgi cross, but he's only 25lbs so he kind of has that small dog perma-puppy look. He's adorable~ After a week of puppy hunting and many almost triumphs-turned-disappointments, we went down to the Edmonton Humane Society on Wednesday to actually look at a 4 month old black lab -- only the little lab had just been adopted barely a half hour before we arrived. Dejected and once again disappointed, we wandered through the other kennels and unexpectedly fell absolutely in love with this little guy (previously named Burt. I think Buddha fits him much better.)

He was apparently adopted once before us but was returned after less than a week because he was apparently too energetic and hyper. o_O We haven't noticed anything like that, at least not like collie-active, he seems pretty average on dog scale of activeness. He's surprisingly well behaved (just found dog borrowing through bathroom garbage pail, came around the corner with my old toothbrush in his mouth. Sigh.) too considering he has no training with basic commands yet -- he's housetrained already and doesn't bark often or chew on your slippers or anything. He's a little too large to be a lap dog, but boy does he try. He likes to cuddle with us on the couch. Buddha's very friendly with people but gets a little spaztastic around other dogs.

I have yet to introduce him to the smell of the bunny, so for now Toby's door is remaining closed. We're going to wait until the dog settles into the house and we really learn his personality and then we'll slowly start introducing the scent of the bunny to him. As for Toby himself, he was a little "WTF" the first time I came into his room covered in dog smell, but his twitchiness has mellowed considerably and he seems to be carrying on with life as usual.

With him being part beagle we're going to be extra careful with the training to ignore the rabbit, though to be completely honest we can't see where the beagle is in him. He looks a lot more like a lab-corgi cross than a beagle-corgi, but we'll see what the vet thinks when we bring him in next week. That appointment should be interesting considering it'll be the first time since the shelter he's been around other dogs, not to mention I think he already has a firm dislike of the vet. When they brought him out of his exit exam at the SPCA he looked like he'd just been violated in some awful way, which technically he probably was. A thermometer up the rear can't be fun. Poor puppy. *Hugs*