Entered: 06/01/2010
Status: Adopted
Age: 8
Color: Liver/White
Weight:
Gender: Altered Female
Location: Aston, PA
Health: UTD, HW-, lump assessment complete with no treatment required
Temperament: Good with adults and children, good with other dogs, reportedly not good with cats
Update 07/02/10:
Lily continues to do well in her foster home. The small lumps on her mammary glands have reduced in size post spaying and her blood work is clear, so other than keeping an eye on them in the future, nothing more needs to be done.
As she’s gained confidence in her new home, Lily has gotten more active. She continues to be non-intrusive in her manners. All the dogs will greet the foster parents on their return, but Lily tends to stand off to the side and just wag her whole body. She’ll readily accept pets and tummy rubs but, when you stop, she finds a spot a couple of yards away to just flop down. She’s getting better about car rides, and stayed two nights at another MAESSR home while her foster mom was out of town. There she got along great with 2 more Springer females and a Cocker. Their resident cat was eyed carefully, but the test was skewed because Lily’s foster sister is cat aggressive. Lily was biased and the cat didn’t enter the room but just watched from the stairs.
Lily also attended a MAESSR table at a local pet store, greeting strangers, both adults and children with a warm Springer grin and tail wags. A summer haircut reveals Lily to be a bit on the skinny side, so her foster mom has increased her meal portions and keeps her more aggressive resident foster sister gated away at meal time. Lily had an Irish terrier foster brother for a week, a 10 month old, and would share a double dog dish with him when eating; she let him steal her stuffed toy too.
She is a really sweet dog, easy to have around, quiet but openly warm. She’s equally at home keeping you company inside or trotting around the yard in search of chipmunk hiding places or trailing a rabbit scent into the woodpile. Some lucky family will find a real treasure in Lily.
Original:
When her West Virginia owners were moving and wanted to downsize, Lily was relinquished to MAESSR. What others dispose of in the way of Springers, MAESSR is glad to acquire to give sweet wiggle butts a new home and a loving new life.
Sweet Lily has settled in at her new foster home quickly despite acting shy for a whole day before joining the canine crowd in her new foster family’ a resident duo and another male Springer foster in whatever activities were planned for the day. She is crate trained and housetrained, and does not counter-surf or trash dive. This pretty girl is not needy, being content to be in an out-of-the-way spot to watch things happen. When her foster folks are away, she’s allowed free roam of the house. At night, she grabs whatever dog bed is empty or on balmy nights, sleeps on the cool tile floor.
This smart girl responds to “come,” “out,” and “stay in the kitchen while we eat.” She’s learning to be attentive while cooking is done, but doesn’t openly beg nearly as much as the resident dogs. She will walk on leash, and can probably be trusted off leash. Her challenge is that she doesn’t care to go out of the yard on leash, so she stops and tries to back out of her collar. Her foster mom isn’t sure if she’s been punished for going to the road or had a bad experience with traffic. If led out through the back gate to a nearby field and rarely traveled drive, she has no problem walking on leash. Although Lily does not love getting into cars, once she’s underway, she soon settles down and rides calmly. She just needs to be lifted in initially.
Lily is learning to play with toys and is quite content at present just to carry a stuffed animal around. She doesn’t physically play with the other dogs, but will trot after them while they play. If they bump into her, she doesn’t mind the contact. Lily willingly shares food and water bowls with the resident female Springer, and if treats are being handed out, will take hers with no conflict with extra dogs doing the same. Petting sessions involving all four dogs (including a grumpy terrier) provoke no guarding, and when given meds with peanut butter, she and the resident girl will lick it off each other’s faces.
The most special thing about Lily’s essence is that she makes her foster folks feel totally special! If you walk into a room and look at her, her body wags and her face breaks into a grin. If spoken to with a loving tone, she doesn’t jump up. Instead, her front end comes off the ground a bit doing a mini-wheelie and she bubbles over with seeming happiness. At night, if she’s sleeping and you walk by, you can hear her short tail thump wagging against the floor. Usually, fosters gravitate to one person, but with Lily, she’s openly loving to everyone. Even the vet techs commented that there was just something about this girl that made her really special.
During spaying, two small lumps were found near her breasts which will be checked and possibly removed in the near future. She’s had multiple litters in her past life and her breasts are a bit droopy.
Ideally, Lily might do best when place with someone who didn’t take long urban walks. That’s basically the only non-positive thing her foster mom could think to say about this fine Springer girl. If it weren’t for her foster mom being maxed out on resident dogs already, Lily would have already found her forever home. Don’t pass up the beautiful flower.