Hello from Seattle

[Sherlock]

Hello All,

I did this a bit backwards as I first posted in the Dog Training Advice forum. But better late than never. My name is Chrysty though right now I think of myself more as Sherlock's Mama (SM) than anything else. Sherlock is a five month old Papillon puppy. He's amazing and full of energy. He's also on the large size for a Pap at over 8lbs and over 11" tall. He's captured our hearts for sure!

Sherlock is our second dog. I had a family dog, a rescue Heinz 57 mix, growing up. My husband is new the dog thing. We had cats for a long time but are now a dog only home as he's allergic to kitties. We did a lot of research for a dog because I want to train him as a medical alert dog. We started researching in 2006. Initially I thought a Belgian Shepherd Dog would be a good match but we do not have a large back yard and I am not in good enough shape to give a dog like that the exercise he needs. So we started looking into less exercise intensive breeds. The Papillon seems to have the right mix of stamina for a working dog and lap dog for a not-so-healthy Mama.

We got our first Pap in July of 2010 after 4 years of research and waiting for the right dog to come along. His name was Meshach. He was beautiful, loving, calm, and tuned into me. He was already beginning to sense my episodes when he became sick. We lost him just after his first birthday to a liver shunt that we didn't find in time. So much love packed into such a short time. He was with us for only 8 months. We decided to wait a while before getting another dog as we loved him so deeply. It would not have been right to get another little soul into our life and keep wishing it was Meshach. And we had to recover some of our finances. We spent quite a bit trying to heal Meshach. We did all we could for him. So while Meshach will always have a place in each of our hearts, we waited until we were ready to call a new dog our own.

Sherlock came into our lives in August. He's a completely different dog! So energetic we are thinking of doing Agility with him to give him some place to put all that energy. That he LOVES to fly! He jumps all the time! He trusts us so much he will launch himself from my husband's arms into mine while both of us are standing 3 feet away from each other. Mind you, we DONT encourage this behavior and we work to prevent it. But Sherlock seems to have no fear of falling. He loves balls and retrieving though he's not so great at the dropping it yet. He is an odd mix of fearful of strangers and new situations but totally fearless at home in his own environment. We love him dearly. Just as much as we loved Meshach, just different. We think he's beautiful. If the computer will let me, I will post a picture in the picture forum.

Anyway, that's us. We really enjoy this place. It has helped us with training Sherlock. He is very independent for a Pap so training is much harder with him. However, he is also very very smart and figures out puzzles and thinks for himself. So he may end up being the best service dog ever!

[dontpugme]

Hi and welcome to the forum! Nice to "meet" you.

A lot of people don't post in the Welcome section of the forum because they are so focused on the Dog Training Advice part that they don't see the bottom half of the forum.

[wvvdiup1]

Hello Sherlock and welcome to the forum!