Puppy pics

Well, I thought I really should post some pics of our lovely Rosa. No blog is complete without pics of our wonderful animal companions, right? Anyways, here she is last year on the beach with us.
Rosa is a Jindo, a rare Korean dog breed. Jindos are hunters that hunt independently of their owners and bring their prey back home. They hunt anything from rodents to deer and wild boar (the latter in packs). They are independent dogs with a very strong bond to their owners and much aloofness to strangers. Jindos are often mistaken for large Shiba Inus or small Akitas, both Japanese breeds in the same Asian Spitz family but with no close genetic links.

We are Rosa's home #4 or 5. She came to us a little over a year ago from her previous owner D. who was very good to her. He took her in when she showed up in his yard in Southern California and she stayed with him for about 5 years, moving up to here with him and their cat. D. made the hard decision to put her up for adoption when it became clear that he would be travelling a LOT for work for a while. He posted her on the Jindo Rescue Board which is where we found her. I commend him for making this decision even though it was very hard for him. Rosa is extremely shy and very nervous with strangers. She would have been very unhappy to have him gone for long stretches all the time.
D. figured out a lot about her previous history when he by chance took her to a vet who knew her! Apparently she had belonged to an elderly couple who wouldn't take her with them when they moved from their house to an apartment. She stayed at the vet who
tried to find her a home. She escaped at some point and after that is when she appeared on D's lawn. It took him a VERY long time to get her to let him touch her but he worked on building trust and took her to training and just did a wonderful job with her.
We are so lucky to have her now! She is the best dog ever!
It took her the better part of a year to fully warm up to us but I think she finally came to the realization that this is her new home, she can trust us, and we'll be good to her.
She loves other dogs (and cats!) and we are carefully looking if there is the perfect second canine for our pack. She loved her foster brother Wolfie who was with us for a couple of weeks. He made her so happy and more outgoing. She was the best model for behavior with him. He learned the ropes in no time! It was the cutest thing to see her do the happydance when we let them out together when we came home. We'll have to see if anyone can fill his paw prints...
Here's our Queen of Sheeba Jindo - still our one and only.
(Last three pics are thanks to nabe L.)