Hello World, Meet Mae.

Note: I'll be blunt, this post is mainly for archival purposes. One day in the future I'll look back on this. :)

Back in late February of 2014, I decided to move into a new apartment for multiple reasons, one of those reasons was to get a dog as my place at the time allowed absolutely zero pets. A couple months later after moving in and becoming fully situated, I started looking for a new furry friend to adopt.

I was filled with a plethora of options, ranging from super cute Westie puppies to the darken tan dog you see below, which is the one I ended up adopting. That lighter color dog in the first photo though comes with a backstory.

Molly and Dolly need a foster! This dynamic mom and daughter duo were rescued from death row and are simply the sweetest pair! Molly is more playful and outgoing... Dolly just wants a snuggle... both are great with other dogs and people. Dolly is about 4 yrs, 10 lbs, Molly 1.5 yrs, 6 lbs...two little bundles of love. (source)

Yes, you read that right, that lighter dog is her daughter. Sadly, the rescue organization noted that they wanted the two to stay together, but sadly looks like they had to adopt her daughter (when I was there, I understood it as the daughter was already adopted). This hurts me every time I think about it, but she was without an owner for around four months.

I ended up adopting Dolly the first day I met her & renamed her to Mae (I'm a huge fan of short, one-syllable names); in fact, the photo above is on that very first day. I took her for quite a long walk (~1hr) and knew she was the one. She was clearly excited and scared for the first day, but during the car ride home, I knew she was aware she was being adopted. On a morning shortly after, I woke up to her sleeping right next to me, in my own bed.

Sadly, no one never knew exactly why she was put into the shelter, but from the sound of it, someone did in fact turn the two in (I'm also not aware if she had any more puppies). I also found out that her previous owner did not take perfect care of her:

• Her teeth were filled with a bunch of tartar and plaque. Along with that, she even had some slight gum irritation. I ended up giving her an anesthetic dental cleaning, which cleared all that up and made her teeth pearly white.
• She showed some signs of having boundries/disciplinary issues.
  • Immeditely after she saw her leash, she became hyper and started crazily running around. I don't promote this type of behavior (I'm indeed her pack leader). This was quickly corrected with lots of positive reinforcement. She now patiently sits until she is called.
  • During walks, she'd be the dominant one leading me... AKA, pulling on the leash. Luckily, she understood what a subtle jerk on the leash meant – to stop pulling. Now, she can walk right at my side...
  • She's extremely protective. If there's another human that suddenly approaches her (or me) that she does not recognize, she'll quickly growl/bark a little. Even when I'm at home, if she hears people talking outside, she'll even growl then. Luckily though, this only happens when she is in her common terrorties, so it could even be slight territory aggression.

On the plus side, Mae is super friendly, loves to play, and knows when to be calm; she's just an awesome pet and I look forward to the many fun, playful years with her. My Instagram profile has a ton of pics of her. :)