I've grown up with pet dogs, and each one leaves an indelible impression on certain stages of my life. Odin is one who changed me forever in more ways than one. He is the first Australian Cattle Dog I have owned, an intelligent and energetic herder dog that keeps me on my toes and challenges me daily. He is the first shelter dog I've adopted, as before him, my pets were either bought or given to me from puppyhood. I don't know where he's been, but he's destined to live out the rest of his years with me.
I wasn't sure I was ready to have another dog just a few short months after my 10-year-old Lab passed away, but seeing Odin on display with his then foster mom, hoping for someone to take him in, imagining him being bounced from shelter to shelter as he got closer to the Kill list--I thought, what am I waiting for? Why am I not helping to save another life?
He brought joy and purpose to my otherwise dark and grieving world. Due to having gotten lost in the Mendocino County and left to fend for himself, he developed, among some of his bad habits, the urge to ransack trash bags/cans for food. The instinct remains with him today, despite being properly fed. Tonight he is warm. He is loved. He will not have to wander lost, cold, and hungry. He will never have to survive by going through trash cans for food scraps ever again.
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