Andrew was found one morning in 2002 tied to an elderly man's porch
rail. The man was kind and tried to keep him a few days, but Andrew was a
rowdy pup of 5 months and over a hundred pounds...
... with all that energy and the man
being unsteady on his feet this was an accident waiting to happen. Andrew needed
to find other digs. Heartland was called in and Andrew was fostered by Ron and Jan... and so the rodeo began! Andrew did not like his feet touched, to Ron's surprise.
Somewhere in OKC there is a vet office with a Ron size dent in its wall.
Andrew did not like his crate either, he cried, dug, screamed like he was being murdered.
Pulled his crate coverings into his crate like the Bermuda Triangle sucks down
ships. He wanted out! But there were many other danes in the house and
crating was the only way. A call was placed to Jack and Jodiann down Texas
way, could they could give Andrew more room? Maybe have more time to train
him?
So that is where we came to foster Andrew. He was easily
stimulated and got rowdy easily, he needed training desperately. Most danes his
age are like this...really rowdy andstubborn to train. We set about
training him and got nowhere fast. He seemed not to notice we were even talking.
We thought he was deaf, but a quick test proved he could hear fine. He just
seemed to not be able to settle his brain on any one thing long enough to
hear a command. It soon dawned on
us that he could have some kind of neurological problem that made training very
slow and it wasn't going to get faster. Maybe when he was a younger pup he
had a high fever, or a head injury, but of course we
will never know.
We kept trying different approaches, but it was not until
our dog pack was employed did Andrew begin to learn. Andrew could
exhaust any dog in play. We would give him one doggie playmate after another.
After all 6 dogs were panting and heading for the water
bowl, then we would step in to train him. It seemed that being tired out by
the pack calmed Andrew to focus. He learned to accept his crate, and not
to jump up.
Not long
after we started fostering him we realized that a normal adoption was
going to be impossible, plus we fell in love with the big old goof ball.
So we decided to pony up the dough to adopt him.
Today, Andrew still is slow to learn and even at nearly 6 years old
he still has the energy to tire a whole dog pack but he is happy and gives
kisses and will briefly sit. His constant quivering keeps him from sitting for
more than 10 seconds, but he does sit. He is a handful, but he is our
goofy big old handful and we love him very much!
Andrew loves playing with 2 liter bottles filled with a little
with water and the cap glued on tight. He brandishes it like he is in the
batter's box and has pretty good aim with it too. Keep Away is his favorite
game.
We still do not touch his feet.
