[QUOTE=arapaloosa_lady;7746804]
Do you actually want the dog or do you just feel badly for her?
I do a lot of rescue work, and it’s hard not to bring home the wrong animal just because they’re in a bad situation. I always encourage people to take a step back & evaluate whether the animal actually fits their situation. If you couldn’t keep the Lab with you, what makes you think you can keep a MinPin? That’s not a snarky question, but you don’t want to feel overwhelmed again with a second dog.[/QUOTE]
I do a ton of rescue work here in Korea so I know where you are coming from. Someone just dropped off a 1 year old St. Bernard at the vet because “I bought it when I PCS’ed here last year as a puppy but didn’t know it would get this big so I don’t want it anymore”. Infact that’s how I got the lab. He was heartworm positive and two days away from being put down at the kill shelter. Have you ever had to keep a lab in a small apartment? He was a great dog but apartment life is no life for a lab. He was fine the first couple of weeks because he had heartworm. Once he was feeling better his energy came back and with my schedule I just didn’t have the hours to get his energy out. It broke my heart to come home at 8pm and have him bouncing off the walls. He needed a yard and someone who was home during the day. He was in no danger of being dumped again, but I was lucky and found a family through mutual friends who had just lost their lab. They had a huge fenced yard and a little boy for him to play with. Once he was done with his heartworm treatment I hired a private pet transport company to fly him to them in the US.
My current dog is pee pad trained and is super easy (I had her before the lab). If I work late I don’t have to worry about if she is peeing all over my apartment. Unfortunately I can not bring her to meet the min pin ahead of time, she is so mentally broken that even leaving my apartment is a terrifying experience. Plus she is currently at a training center.
I am fortunate to be able to bring the dog to work with me if she is well behaved. And they say she is pee pad trained which is a must for my current schedule… However if she isn’t, she is small and can be trained. I just don’t have the schedule for a dog who had to go for several hour long walks a day just to keep sane, like the lab did.
I’ll go meet her today. I want her but want to make sure I am not being impulsive. I mostly posted to write it out and a) make sure I still felt this way today after reading it and b) ask myself what I would tell someone in my shoes.
Fwiw, I know two dogs aren’t harder than one, I grew up with several and up until I came to Korea we had 5 dogs (my parents 4 plus mine, who is too old and frail to fly). I feel like Korea poses an extra roadblock in some ways but it shouldn’t be too much of a difference.
