Josie (aka Tanya)

Well, I guess you could call it love at first sight because the first time I saw Josie I was smitten.
It was at Pet Expo and I was manning another booth down the way. Every time someone had Josie out, she caught my eye. She was about 4 months old.
I called home to make sure we all wanted another dog as we already owned two.
Everyone thought it was a good idea. Especially since we'd just lost our other big dog from a car accident a little over a year ago.
She was my first adopted dog from a shelter. All the other dogs we own have come straight from the home that didn't want them into our house.
Wow! my first dog that I get to pick out the name for. She was already named Tanya but we thought she was young enough to learn another one.
At first she was very shy around everyone. But oh so good!
She has such good manners and hasn't ruined anything. (Okay, other than masking tape rolls)
She was scared of men and didn't like to leave the house though. I guess she thought we might not bring her back if we took her out. Her favorite part of any trip for her is seeing home in the distance.
She likes to move stuff. It's not unusual to find your shoe or sock on the living room couch. I guess Josie has her own decorating ideas.
We decided to put her in doggie daycare twice a week so she'd get used to other people and dogs and mostly so she'd run around to exhaustion so she might actually sleep in.
It was quite a battle getting her to like even going for car rides let alone to get dropped off but now she blasts into the daycare like she owns the place. I think the first few days were harder on me. I'd call three times a day to make sure she was okay and didn't want to go home.
Unfortunately the sleeping in part didn't work out as well.
She sleeps with my daughter Brandy (the one in the pic with her) until she gets restless around 5:30am. Then Brandy gets up and lets her out so we adapted and cut a doggie door in the patio door screen that's in our bedroom. Now I'll wake up and there's Josie sleeping next to me with her legs all up in the air and her butt resting next to my pillow. Morning breath just doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Of course she has to see if the other dogs want to play before settling down so she has to take a swipe at them to see the reaction. No dog or human is really is interested in anything other than sleep at that hour so a few growls from all of us gets the message across.
A really cute habit she has is when you pet her, she will slowly put her head down, down, down, until she's turned upside down. Sometimes she even will do a summersault all the while she's gently biting at your wrist with the hugest grin on her face.
She housetrained very easily and picked up tricks quickly.
I call her my "mensa dog".
After receiving such a beautiful animal from a shelter I would recommend anyone who's looking for a pet, to get one from a shelter.
They may have their little quirks from the bad start that most of them had, but with lots of love and a little patience the reward back is tenfold. They are awesome animals!
The only thing I had to learn was to not baby her too much. I realized that I was preventing her normal development by shielding her from everything. Plus she was playing me. She'd act so scared of Craig when I was in the room, but when I wasn't around, she'd be curled up on the bed beside him. What an actress!
So that's just the first chapter of a long and happy life with our Josie bear!
Thank you so much for our wonderful dog! *Barb