Blaze’s “Gotcha Day” 12 years ago

12 years ago I became a dog owner. My son and Daughter in law wanted a second dog to keep their dog, Ella, company. Although they got along great at first, things changed when it came to spending their first night together. Ella became very possessive and started to show aggression towards Blaze. They started looking for a new owner and eventually asked if I could watch Blaze “until they found him a new home”. I had never owned a dog and was happy enough with my 4 Parakeets and my 34 year old Turtle. I can still see him walking down the hallway towards the kitchen. I had no idea how to care for a dog! What was good to feed him? How often does he pee and poop? I was a blank slate. I was off work the next day so I took him out to “go” every hour, just in case. I started reading everything I could and asked my Facebook friends. One of them sent me an ebook by Cesar Milan and learned that people take their dogs out to walk for the DOG’S benefit! I always figured they just took the dog along while the owner got exercise! 😂. So we went on our first walk. It was apparent he’d never been walked, and that I’d never walked a dog. My arm was exhausted, and he needed to sit down to rest halfway home. I used Cesar’s suggestions and we’ve been walking 3 miles a day since then. He came from a really rough inner city home where the owners were being evicted, so I doubt they ever walked him. My son said he won the lottery when he ended up with us. He’s completely spoiled now, sleeps with us at night, gets his food shipped from Washington state and gets dozens of kisses every day!