It's been a long while since I posted last. I figured I would forget about this blog, but I've remembered now. :P
Delbert was our second foster dog and was around 2 years old. He came to us on a somewhat warm March day. (I think...I may very well be wrong. After a while the time-frame of all of these dogs tend to blend together.) We should have known he was going to be trouble from day one. He came from Tennessee on a transport and we had agreed to meet the transport at a small store somewhere around the middle of nowhere. Long story short, they couldn't find the place so we agreed to meet them somewhere else. We get Delbert, surprised at his immenseness (for a Basset Hound). He was longer and taller than most Bassets, and had more drool than any Basset I had ever seen. Yet he was scared of other dogs. And he had bad manners. Poor guy never learned the lessons he should have as a puppy; It was completely beyond him why jumping on people or counter surfing was a no-no.
We had him for a couple of months and was then adopted out. About three months later, we learned that he was being returned to foster care as he was getting into things at his new home and wasn't bonding with the other dog. He was sent to a different foster home this time, were he remained for a little while before being adopted again. He remained in this home for about another three months before he was once again returned to the rescue because he was causing even more trouble such as licking the floor (although my guess is that there was more to it than that). He came back to our home where I spent an hour sitting on the floor with him as he sat there whining and wondering why his owner had left him there. The poor dog was confused, wondering why this was happening again. Being a dog with a short attention span, he quickly got over his feelings of being abandoned and began to show his true colors once again. He had lost some weight since we last saw him, but he was still the same old giant Basset. Or so we thought. He soon began to show a new side of himself. While he no longer pulled on his leash and rarely jumped on people, the sweet dog we used to call the "Gentle Giant" had turned into a beast.
He had food aggression, for starts. He gobbled that food down like it was going out of style. But that wasn't all of it. While he was still terrified of dogs, he had suddenly decided that most people were beneath him. He would snap and growl at anyone who came near him at the wrong time or when he had something he didn't want us to have. And he especially hated my dad. I knew that if we adopted him out, he was going to bite someone and he would be put down. I had grown attached to Delbert and didn't want that to happen to him. I begged my parents to adopt him, and after much begging and making promises that I have tried to keep, they agreed. Delbert's problems have better since then, but not before they got worse. The whole family has put in a lot of time and patience into this dog. He is now 5 years old and we recently took him to see an animal behaviorist who has been helping us turn him into a part of our family. It's been a long, hard road and it's still going on, but I try to remind myself to take it one day at a time. He has shown some improvement. And he's still my best friend. I have never had a dog become more attached to me than anyone else. I'm not going to give up on him.
He's not all bad though. He's actually quite the character. As I sit here writing this, he's outside on the deck sitting in the rain. He refuses to come in. He loves to be outside. He has a corner of the yard that he sits in and watches the rest of the world. He has the attention span of a little kid and constantly seems to forget what he's doing, but he can be a lovable dog when he wants to be. Our house would be very different without him. I love my buddy, and I pray that someday he'll learn to get along with everyone so that he can be a real part of the family. And you can be assured that you will be hearing plenty about this dog in the future. :D
