Harvey

A bustling Saturday at the Shelter and several dogs needing their first volunteer walk of the day; so different than last week.  You had to notice Harvey, he paced continuously back and forth in his kennel, a very anxious dog.  If ever a dog needed a romp, it was Harvey.  He is about six, a Gordon Setter mix and newly arrived from another shelter.

At his back door I had to firmly say "back" about three times for him to move away from bolt mode; but he did.  Once I was inside his kennel, he sat on command long enough for me to get him harnessed and we were off.  Given what I perceived as a high level of stress, we went directly to the exercise yard.  I let him trot around sniffing, taking care of business, etc. then I thought I'd check out some of the obedience basics hoping that a little structure would relieve some of his stress.  He aced everything I asked him to do:  come, sit, and down (he included roll over).  I decided we would try a bit of fetch before proceeding to our walk.  I threw the ball and he went for it, but he was distracted on the return.  After another toss or two I noticed that he was  protecting his back leg.  On closer look I saw that his foot pad was bleeding, poor Harvey's outing came to an abrupt end with the staff giving him first aid.

I am so impressed with this dog. This was Harvey's second day at this shelter, in my opinion his stress level was off the charts, a least one foot was injured and he still connected with me, a stranger, and carried out all of the commands I asked of him.  His future owner will be very lucky to have him as part of the family.