I had seen Spock in a picture, which actually was on Petfinder.com, and fallen in love with him. I wrote to the rescue group who had posted him, and then waited. There were a lot of emails, filling out forms, giving references and waiting for them to be checked. I think I checked my email every 5 minutes just to see if there was a Spock email.
One day there was a yes, and if I could have beamed him up and down into my living room I would have done it!
I calmed myself by selecting a name. I tried several, and while they weren't bad, they just didn't have that special "click" that fitted with him. One time this long time Star Trek watcher could just 'see' Mr. Spock in his face, and so Spock he became.
We don't know his true birthday, and we wanted him to have one, so we just adopted a birthday for him, and the one we needed, of course, was Valentine's Day. It just fits too.
Finally the day came when we knew we could pick up Spock. He was being transferred from one rescue group to another, so we could drive the 5 hours or so to Brandon, Manitoba, to bring our baby home.
We didn't want to be late. We travelled the day before and stayed overnight in Brandon. As it happens, Spock was a little late, and we went to see the stores, I checked my watch every 5 minutes, checked my cell phone was working each time, and waited for THE call. Finally, it came, and we were to be there in 30 minutes.
I had this awful thought. "What if he doesn't like us?" My husband told me to not be crazy. This dog has survived so much, "I don't think he would be that stupid!" he laughed. I felt better, but hedging my bets a little, we went to a Fried Chicken store. I bought a chicken breast, pulled off every bit of skin, separated the meat into small pieces, rolled it in a napkin, and slipped it into my pocket. We went to wait.
There he was, the car pulled in, and out he popped on a beautiful new leash. I must have smelled like a chicken store because he looked right at me, and as I pulled out the first bit of meat, just ate it out of my hand, and looked for more. It was the time for mega treats.
I was amazed at how beautiful he looked. He was groomed like a show dog. There is no way you can take a very dirty dog and have that white look as it did. I knew he had been very well looked after. With him was a crate, towels, his medicine, a nice leash and collar. Wow I thought. I have seen puppies in far worse shape shipped from "reputable breeders" to unsuspecting purchasers, and sadly, not only chows.
I picked Spock up into my arms, sat in the front seat with him, and away we went.
As Canadians, our first stop was Tim Hortons for a good cup of coffee to travel with, and as we went through the drive through, the pretty young girl at the window, almost fell through as she admired Spock. Before we knew it he had two plain timbits to eat, and officially became a Canadian!!
As we began to travel, he began to move around, investigating everything, and finally decided the place to ride was the arm rest in between my husband and I. We made many bathroom breaks, on that trip and I just couldn't get him to 'go'. He would explore, he would accept the ear scratched. He would drink. He would eat, but for some reason, this was not on the list.
Three hours into our trip, he settled. He was so pleased with himself, jumped into the car...well most of the way, and obviously had decided he was "our chow".
It was late when we got home, so we crated him for his own security, and waited for the children to get up in the morning. What excitement! Spock loved it all. Day 2 began.
If we had any concerns about Spock, it was that he protected his toys. He didn't protect food, but with children it was a problem, so we worked on that.
I sat giving toys and taking away toys, trading toys, till he got used to it. He always looked worried but so relieved when I gave it back! It took about 4 days for him to realize that the toys were mine and I just let him play with them. I think too, with children around, he saw so many toys, he figured it was not a big deal.
Potty training went very well. Any problem we had was because I missed him standing at the door.
He stopped protecting toys....accepted the kids like a brother and sister.
The only odd thing about Spock is that he likes to carry things around. He would play fetch from day one.
He carries things always, piles them up, then moves them.
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Saturday May 21, 2006. We decided to take Spock to the Lake, with the kids, on one of those retractable leashes. He was happily running off, when the clip came off the leash. That is terrifying when there is nothing for about 30 miles. I dropped to my knees, held a big treat in the side of my mouth, and called his name. He stopped in mid run, turned around and ran back to me almost knocking me flat. I scratched his ears, rubbed his tummy, gave lots of treats and slipped a second leash on really quickly. Such a wonderful puppy.
May 25th, 2006. We have discovered that Spock is afraid of hoods and reacts badly when he sees one. Training him that they are safe, is important. We have devised a lot of games, such as dropping small baby blankets on him and then giving treats when he wriggles out, so it is a game. We have gone to making a hooded sweater one of the blankets, and then having him eat near one hanging. This is going very well.
We have corrected his diet a little, adding afresh egg every other day, and raw meat of various types. Minor tummy upsets have disappeared, and he is much calmer than he was. He continues to retrieve.