In the Beginning, there was a dog that needed rescuing

I've always thought of having a good looking dog that would go everywhere with me, hang out in my truck, go to the store, not run off when he's off leash, you get the picture. Prior to 2020, I had owned a few dogs. They never did what I wanted them to do and so I thought they were a pain in the butt and they messed up my lifestyle. Back then, I was looking for something that was perfect out of the box. I was pretty messed up. None of those dogs worked out. We never bonded, I didn't have the right space for them, the beagle I had at one point "never" stopped barking, never. Great for townhouse living. Just like the two full grown Dalmatians. They were prefect for that townhouse. right. 

Life changed and for awhile, it was all cats. No comment. I mean, I like cats when they're cool and they want to hang out with you. Not the ones that whine like they want your attention then as soon as you try to give them a little lovin, they walk away. Let's just say that the person in my life at that time wanted to recue kittens and at one point, we had 32 of them, in a two bedroom condo. Enough said.

Life changed and for awhile, well, I went through a lot of stuff for awhile. Then, in 2010, life did change for the best. I met this beautiful woman named Mary Anna who turns out to be very smart, loving, hard working and if you know anyone from Massachusetts, a pain in the ass at times. As we made our life together, she's allowed me to try out many, many things. We had bees. eleven hives at one point. We had a company together that sold and installed floating wetland islands to remediate stormwater pollution and create habitat. Really cool idea but not great in open water systems where nature has a way of wrecking things. 

As the years went on, I started the dog dream again. We talked about it for a couple of years. Now, Mary Anna was pre-vet in college. She really knows a lot about animals and how to take care of them. She was not keen on my hell-bent desire to try this dog thing out but as I usually do, I persisted (gently). I would look at various websites that showed dogs for adoption. For over a year, I would show her pictures and we would discuss the pros and cons of having "that" dog. Mostly, it was "we don't have the time or money to take care of a dog." Since I was sort of clueless about how to properly care for a dog, I would get frustrated because I felt she was just holding me back. 

I am a partner in a construction company that focuses on Federal contracting. My business partner and I spoke about having a dog at the office during this time of searching for a dog. I'm not sure what was really going through his mind when I started to share with him that I was thinking of getting a pooch and that I would need to bring it into the office. At this point, I had it drilled into my head that I couldn't ethically leave a dog at home for 10 hours a day. Especially a new dog that we didn't know much about. 

At one point, we were at Bass Pro and a guy was in the store with his roan GSP. It was a young dog, maybe eight or nine months old. I thought it was the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. I started researching GSPs and looking at all of the hunting pictures they were in. Then, on a rescue site called Lucky Dog Rescue out of Washington, DC, there was a roan ticked GSP named Pilsner. It was a Thursday night. I showed Mary Anna and we decided we would go "look" at this dog on Saturday morning at an adoption event. I filled out the paperwork and after submitting it, learned that there were several families looking at Pilsner and already on the waiting list ahead of us. Having research everything you have to do for the rescue organizations before you can adopt a dog, I remembered to take a long video of our home and the yard. I was prepared. We drove the hour or so to get over to the Petco store in Rockville, Maryland where the adoption event was taking place. Arriving at about 8:15 AM, the parking lot was filled with cars and there were literally hundreds of people walking around. We were really surprised by the number of people clamoring around. We hustled over to the front of the store where there were dozens of dogs on leashes being held by their foster parents. We spied Pilsner with a nice looking couple who seemed to be about our age. There were two or three families hanging out petting him and talking to the foster parents. We waited until some of the smoke cleared and then approached. I put my hand out and after Pilsner sniffed my hand a moment, he jumped up on me! He had not done that with any of the other people who were interested in him. We hung out with Pilsner and the fosters for about 20 minutes. We learned that Pilsner was found on the streets in South Carolina wandering around. He was not chipped, his tail was not docked and he still had his dew claws. His ribs were very pronounced but we were assured that he was eating well at his temporary home. We spoke with the adoption coordinator who said there were seven families ahead of us interested in Pilsner. We continued to hang around, looking at other dogs just in case it didn't work out for us to adopt him. We really were only interested in Pilsner but we wanted to make a good showing with the adoption folks and not look like psychos. 

Finally after about an hour and a half, the people running the adoption approached us and asked if we were still interesting in Pilsner. Yay! Of course. We showed them the video and filled out all kinds of paperwork agreeing to walk him at least an hour a day, socialize him with other dogs "at a dog park" and not just the neighbors' dogs, etc. etc. etc. I think it's easier to get a job with the FBI than to adopt a pet. And, after about another hour of waiting, Pilsner was ours! I was so excited and so nervous all at the same time.

We walked to our Subaru and with a minor amount of coaching, Pilsner jumped into the back of the car and curled up on his blanket. He only stood up twice on the hour long drive home but Mary Anna's calm reassuring voice gave Pilsner the calm confidence he needed to settle back down. As we drove, we discussed what we might want to re-name Mr. Pilsner. We weren't settled on the Pilsner thing. One name seemed to catch my attention the most, Owen. This was a family name. My birth last name, my grandfather's first name and my son's middle name. 

We walked Owen into our home and took him straight to the back yard. We set up his crate in the living room. We set out the stainless steel bowls the Mary Anna's dog from years ago used. We brought in his toy that we purchased at the Petco store that morning. Owen was checking all of this out and seemed nervous. One thing we noticed immediately was that Owen was very well crate trained. Anytime we stood up for anything, he went right into his crate. Later on, when we sat down for dinner, he went into his crate without us saying anything. Make a note of this because this observation will come up with his bird training. 

Over the next days, weeks and months, Mr. Owen settled in very nicely. Completely potty trained from day one. He loved to sit on the couch with us and snuggle in. He sleeps in his bed near ours upstairs and... he is my office buddy! Owen rides to work with me each day and sleeps all day in his create or on his bed. I think he is a union dog though. I have my grandfather's retirement clock in my office. It's a nice walnut cabinet Seth Thomas with chimes. Almost every day, at about 4 PM, Owen stands up and comes over to me telling me it's time to stop working and leave. Can dogs read time? Geez. I'll leave this story here for now and catch up on the next chapters of his, and my development together. Thank you for staying with me on this!