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Meet Ares
As I promised (too many days ago but things have been unusually busy here) here is our new doggo. His name (by my decree) is now Ares. The shelter folks had him as "Aries" like the zodiac sign for the ram. But he's a sheepdog, not a sheep. And the first night after he came home with us, he kept growling at and making threatening moves toward his own reflection in the bedroom mirror, so I rechristened him as "Ares" the Athenian god of war. (Who wasn't very warlike, actually, just bristly. He seems mostly to have spent his time posing nude for sculptors while holding a sword or a spear.) Anyway, both names sound the same, so Ares has had no issue with the change.
As you can see, he has made himself quite at home here. The shelter identified his family origins as Great Pyrenees and Aussie Shepherd. They don't do DNA confirmation of that, but certainly his coloration and coat type fits the Pyrenees. And someone inappropriately docked his tail, leaving him only about six muscular inches of it. Fortunately that's enough to reach where the beginning of the "flag" of longer fur was, and that long fur is black for contrast like on his face and ears. When he wags, it looks like the tail of a very young horse in fact. And after a couple of days when he got used to our routine and his new home, he started wagging it a lot. He also promptly claimed a large and luxurious dog bed pillow I had bought for our still much missed Laddie. Laddie never used that bed much, because he preferred to share ours. About a week ago, Ares also claimed the plastic kennel crate that belonged to my long-gone bearded collie, Simon. It has been sitting in our bedroom with a pile of plush toys on top of it. The door was open enough so he could push it aside and he just walked right in and said "Mine now." So he has a private hideout.
Overall we are quite pleased with him. He has firmly bonded with husband Gary, but he does pay attention to me and will do what I tell him to do when necessary. He particularly likes me when I'm in the kitchen preparing food, but I guess that doesn't mean very much. His ribs were quite obvious and prominent three weeks ago, but he's only a year old and we're working on putting more weight on him. At 55 pounds, he can afford to gain a bit. Male Pyrenees often reach 100 lbs. or more, but I don't think he'll get that much larger. I'd like to see him at about 75 lbs. though.
As you can see, he has made himself quite at home here. The shelter identified his family origins as Great Pyrenees and Aussie Shepherd. They don't do DNA confirmation of that, but certainly his coloration and coat type fits the Pyrenees. And someone inappropriately docked his tail, leaving him only about six muscular inches of it. Fortunately that's enough to reach where the beginning of the "flag" of longer fur was, and that long fur is black for contrast like on his face and ears. When he wags, it looks like the tail of a very young horse in fact. And after a couple of days when he got used to our routine and his new home, he started wagging it a lot. He also promptly claimed a large and luxurious dog bed pillow I had bought for our still much missed Laddie. Laddie never used that bed much, because he preferred to share ours. About a week ago, Ares also claimed the plastic kennel crate that belonged to my long-gone bearded collie, Simon. It has been sitting in our bedroom with a pile of plush toys on top of it. The door was open enough so he could push it aside and he just walked right in and said "Mine now." So he has a private hideout.
Overall we are quite pleased with him. He has firmly bonded with husband Gary, but he does pay attention to me and will do what I tell him to do when necessary. He particularly likes me when I'm in the kitchen preparing food, but I guess that doesn't mean very much. His ribs were quite obvious and prominent three weeks ago, but he's only a year old and we're working on putting more weight on him. At 55 pounds, he can afford to gain a bit. Male Pyrenees often reach 100 lbs. or more, but I don't think he'll get that much larger. I'd like to see him at about 75 lbs. though.
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There's an issue with access to the picture. Maybe it's marked private?
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Yes, he's very bright and quick to learn. He may also learn stuff he'd be better off not knowing. We shall see.
I've also determined that he has another Great Pyrenees trait. His down undercoat spins up into a nice soft yarn. He was shedding a lot when he first got here, probably from stress. That has stopped now, but soon he'll start building up a winter coat and next spring there's going to be white hair everywhere.
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Our Husky/Heeler mix (per the shelter) has the appearance and traits of a Black Mouth Cur.
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Ares has one little black spot right in the middle of his back, as well as the black markings on his face and tail. Inside of his mouth looks like a Dalmatian, pink with black spots scattered about. His tongue is an ordinary pink, though. (I'm always fascinated by the Chows with their blue tongues.)
He is in fact a pretty sweet dog. He seemed a bit timid at first but that has worn off. He still winces at a sharp word, though. It took a lot of repeats to convince him that stealing shoes and carrying them around the house was not acceptable, even so.
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