This is (potentially) the newest member of our family, Iris. She is the service dog that I’ve acquired from CWAC. She is a 4yr old German Shepard (not sure how pure) that came to CWAC from the Humane Society of Utah.
We only have her for a trial right now, to see if everything goes well while she stays with us. We’ve had her since Thursday and so far so good. She is THE most calm, mild mannered dog I have ever seen. In five days I’ve heard her whimper once or twice, but that is it. She is most often found in the position shown in the pic, laying at my feet waiting for me to move.
Issues?
She has been so mellow in fact that we aren’t entirely sure she is healthy. She honestly only moves when I get up and walk around, and then she simply follows me and lays down again. Before I decide to keep her I’m going to want to make sure that she is in fact healthy. I don’t want to train and work with a dog that isn’t going to last for several years.
She is also a picky eater. CWAC provided me with a bag of dried dog food for the weekend, but she won’t touch it. The only thing she will eat it seems is canned dog food or meat (we gave her some left over ham). To feed her an adequate amount of that each day would mean we are spending more on feeding her than we do the kids each day. If we can’t get her to eat a less expensive type of food then expenses might mean we can’t keep her.
Julie is mildly allergic to dogs. So her allergies will be a potential issue. The first day or so she had a fairly bad headache. A great neighbor came by with some DoTerra oils that Julie has used that seem to have solved that issue. But it is something to consider as well since those aren’t exactly cheap either. But that will be the case with any dog, and not solely with this one.
Decisions
So after this trial I’ll get to decide whether to keep Iris or not. If I keep her I’ll officially adopt her from CWAC. Then I will continue to train her to meet my specific needs from a service dog (help with PTSD issues including help with public panic attacks and waking me from nightmares).
The name Iris is fairly new to her, so if I keep her I could rename her to something of my choosing. She’s about 4 yrs old, and we aren’t sure what name(s) she used previously, before ending up at a shelter. The family that brought her in said they found her and kept her a couple of months. They named her Iris, but couldn’t afford to keep her.
I wish there were some way to know what she is used to being called. I’m not a huge fan of the name Iris, so if you have a good name to recommend, feel free.
The kids all love her… some of they too much so. Little JR thinks she is his personal pillow, horse, trampoline. It’ll take no small amount of training of him as well I suppose. They all want to be the next one to take her outside, to hold the leash, to feed her, etc. Trying to get them to understand that she isn’t exactly a pet will be something we work on. They are good kids though, so I don’t see any problems.