For the love of god, neuter your dogs!

My husband and I both LOVE dogs.  I grew up with Greyounds and their smaller counter parts (Italian Greyhounds) and Jake grew up with Beagles.  For the first 8 years of our married life, we lived in an appartment that did not allow dogs, so we waited, patiently, to find the perfect home.  Not a small task when you have a limited budget, live in Southern NH (very expensive), and want acreage for horses!

After a three year search, we found our dream home (diamond in the rough) on 3 acres in Hampstead, NH.  That was July of 2011.

We weren't ready to add dogs to the family, not just yet, but I couldn't help but start looking.  In October 2011, I found my beautiful, sensitive, princess miss Penny on Craigslist.  She was one year old, not spayed, and very shy, but I fell instantly in love with her.  I brought her home, took care of all her vetting, and once she was settled we decided to wait a while before adding the second member to our canine family, a Beagle for my husband.

Well, in the past month or so, we felt ready to add that second dog and so began to search. 

Last Tuesday I saw an ad on Craigslist for a 2 year old 10" Beagle, male, un-neutered (oy-vey!) that was looking for a new home.  He was about an hour and a half away so Friday, we packed up miss P and went for a road trip to meet him and see if he was a good canditate.

Let me begin by saying that some people should just not have dogs period.  Holy smokes, the chaos in that house hold was overwhelming!  Penny wanted nothing to do with anything there and the look on her face was sheer horror at the thought of us leaving her there.  Poor miss P.

The house was a smaller home in the back ally section of the city.  No yard to speak of.  Within there were many small children and at least 4 dogs.  Various cages of other critters lined the walls.  From out of the mayhem bounces this happy, shiny, smiling (mannerless) and absolutely drop dead gorgeous itty bitty Beagle boy!

His story was told to me as such (with a little improv from my intuition):

Breeder sells to owner #1 for $800.00 as puppy.  Owner #1 wants to use Beagle boy for breeding but Beagle boy develops and underbite so at one year of age, they give him away on Craigslist to owner #2.

Owner #2 felt sorry for Beagle boy.  I imagine he was a kennel dog (based on his house manners) and a year old un-neutered, un-trained kennel stud dog is really not the ideal pet for a house hold with multiple small childred and other dogs!  So Beagle boy gets to spend the next year of his life in a crate in the house or tied in the back yard.  They were told it was $$$ to get him neutered so never did.  His attempts to mount everything in sight were finally overwhelming and despite their (seemingly) good intentions to give a kennel dog a family home, they had reached their wits end with him an put him up on Craigslist for $250.00, which is the ad I saw and what prompted me to go look at him.

So, in his short two years of life, Beagle boy (named Roscoe) has had THREE owners, not including his breeder and why?  BECAUSE NO ONE TOOK THE RESPONSIBILITY TO NEUTER HIM (OR TRAIN HIM).

We brought him home (I did not pay $250, let me tell you) on Friday of last week and have re-organized our home to accomodate a stud dog until his neuter appointment on July 15th.  Penny, my IGGY, adores him, but his hormones are out of control and while he is the most kind hearted dog I have ever met, he cannot be loose in her company for his lack of control over himself.

He's very smart and submissive and learning "off" and "down" very quickly.  He just wants to please, to fit in, to be loved, but he has been denied that for lack of training and LACK OF NEUTERING.  We have our work cut out for us, but with a minor "brain" surgery and a few months of quiet steady training, I really think he has potential to be a wonderful, wonderful little dog.

Without further ado, meet ROSCOE! :D

Just arrived at home and walking around the back field

In the back seat on the ride to his new (and final!) home

Look at that tongue!

I can't believe I'm not in a crate!

I died and went to doggy heaven! :)

I'll be sure to update more on Roscoe as his integration into our family progresses.  He goes to the vet for his pre-op appointment tomorrow and with any luck, he'll be a neutered man next Monday, July 15th!

Step one to a new beginning for this little guy.