A Not So Sunny Moment

Sunny, despite being a counter-surfer extraordinaire is a pretty easy dog to have around. Our dogs like him well enough and he gets along with everyone.  And I know I can say this about every new-comer we've had, but there really is something unique about Sunny--And it isn't that he doesn't like his picture taken--It's that I think he's very, very smart.  He always does as he's asked and listens really well too.  I've seen him do things like open a gate that in all the time we've lived here, no other dog has been able to figure out.

Unfortunately, on the flip-side Sunny doesn't like to be handled.  I knew before he came to us that there were problems at the vets office with this.  Sunny had to be muzzled when they cleaned out his ears, and he nipped one of the technicians when she grabbed his collar to get him out of the crate.  Knowing about this, Carl and I have been very careful with Sunny and for the most part we have had no problems.

The routine has been that when we have another addition I write a note letting our dog-walker Christy, know any quirks the new dog may have.  When Sunny arrived, that was what I did.  However, Christy and her children had not been feeling well, so a substitute dog-walker has been coming to our house since Sunny arrived.  On Wednesday Christy returned to work, and unfortunately she had not seen the note I'd written about Sunny and that she shouldn't grab his collar. So, when she got ready to leave our house, and put Todd back into his crate (with a stuffed Kong) Sunny went into the crate with him--And Christy did what anyone may have done in an instant, she grabbed his collar to get him out--Sunny whipped his head around and bit her.

Very, very thankfully the bite was not a serious one and didn't scratch or break the skin but it did leave a bruise.  Christy was (thankfully) not upset at all about it, but of course the rescue takes these things very, very seriously.  I'll spare you the rest of the details and just admit to still being a little bit unnerved by Sunny and I'm really, really worried about safely placing him into a new home when the time comes--This is the part of fostering that is the most difficult; finding and trusting someone to adopt a dog like Sunny that has a few wrinkles that aren't easy to iron out.