After months of searching for a dog, we decided to visit two dogs from the Colorado Prison Trained Dog Program. This program rescues dogs, takes them for 2 months and lets prisoners train them, and then sells them. These dogs are very well trained and they assured us that they do not accept aggressive dogs or dog breeds into their program.
We drove to Denver of December 26th to see two dogs, Waldo & Tobin. Jack immediately bonded with Waldo who was super calm and just layer in the kids laps. Tobin, on the other hand, was 80lbs of rambunctiousness. After a couple hours of visiting with both dogs, we decided on Waldo.
The first month with Waldo was rather uneventful. He came to us crate trained and knowing many commands. He loved to eat/chew on everything. You could not take your eyes off him for one minute without him destroying something. As a result, Waldo had to be crated a good amount of the day since I couldn't always watch him. The kids enjoyed having a dog around, especially Jack
The dog training program told us they thought Waldo would be a good runner. We tried running with him a couple times, but they usually ended like this with Waldo laying on the ground and refusing to run.
Towards the end of February, Waldo sliced his paw on something in the backyard. It was either a piece of metal landscape edging or it was a shred of plastic from a big plastic container that Waldo had torn to shreds the day before. In any case, the slice was pretty severe and his paw had to be bandaged and he had to take some medication for pain and wear a cone around his head.
He was an unhappy camper. That weekend the kids were watching TV with Waldo in the living room while Luke and I were a few feet away in the kitchen. The story we got from the kids was that Lily was petting the dog nicely but Josie had taken a toy away from him. In any case, Waldo attacked Lily. Thankfully he had a cone on his head so he couldn't get in too close, but he bit her in the face and as everyone started screaming, he would not back off. I was the first to get to him and had to pull him off her by the cone on his head.
Then we had to take Lily to the ER, which led to a visit by animal control. Waldo had to be quarantined for 10 days but we didn't want to keep him at our house, so we had to board him with our vet. During those 10 days we contacted the Prison Trained Dog Program who told us that Waldo would be euthanized if he was returned. We did not want this to happen as we still believed Waldo was a great dog and his attack was related to his injury and the medication he was on.
A tech at our vet's office decided to adopt Waldo. It was a great match! This vet tech was a single dude who was studying to be a veterinarian and his roommate was a dog trainer. We felt good that we sent Waldo to a good home
The kids were able to say goodbye to Waldo and know that he would be well taken care of.
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