Shelby

I've decided that I am going to do a series of blogs about notable animals in my life. Since I talked a bit about Shelby in my last blog, I will lead off with him.

Meet Shelby: He is actually the newest addition to our household (Joseph aside). We adopted Shelby from the Kentucky Humane Society in Louisville in February 2009. He was 7 months old. He is a Border Collie/Beagle Mix but I am sure there is some bird dog in there as well. We began the search looking for a beagle. It had taken us forever to settle on a type of dog. Michael is more interested in Rotts, Pit Bulls, Labs, Boxers, etc. I told him that I wasn't having a dog that weighed more than 40 lbs in the house. He said that anything less than 40 lb wasn't a dog (Shelby comes in just under at 37 lb). We had given up on finding a dog that we could both agree on. Finally one day after working with the beagles at UK, we decided we could both live with a beagle (because beagles are super cool). So I began searching Petfinder.com. We looked at 3 dogs, a full beagle female whose name I can't recall (she was already in adotion process), a Beagle/Bassett mix named Larry, and a Border Collie/Beagle Mix named Chester (we had to change the name to Shelby...I kept calling him Chester Molester). He is named after Carroll Shelby the car designer (as in the Shelby Mustang...Eleanor in Gone in 60 Seconds). He gets mistaken for a female so often because of his name. Poor thing.


Here is Shelby not long after he was adopted:
Such a sweet face. His leg was not hurt...he has a bit of a nervous licking problem and we were trying to keep him from licking his leg raw. This is a continuous battle.

I said before that Shelby is crazy fast....it's true and very hard to catch via camera. This is maddening for my parent's border collie, Shyann, who, until I saw Shelby, was one of the fastest dogs I knew. She just can't catch him, can't herd him, just generally can't make him do. Here he is doing what I like to call his "crop circles." Seriously, the dog runs in a circle...but at least he can go clockwise and counter-clockwise...and he does lots of figure 8's.
Shelby loves to fetch and play with his Bad Cuz:

He can fetch forever. Joseph is going to have a ball playing with him when he gets older.


He gets along well with other dogs, cats, and horses...although only a few of the aforementioned care for him. He does tend to get extremely jealous though....but not as jealous as Shyann:

This is Shelby trying out to be on a PETA/Humane Society ad:

Look how pitiful..."Please help me...my parents abuse me...never mind the shiny look of my coat...look at the sadness in my eyes!" But Shelby, if you ever are on a PETA ad, you will need them to come get you because I'm throwing your butt out. Love you. :)

Generally he is a pretty happy dog:

Who likes to give Joseph kisses even though he doesn't quite know what to make of him yet.

Future best buds:

Shelby's favorite things:

Walks/Runs: don't even put walking or running shoes on without expecting to take the dog....he goes berzerk when you even touch those shoes...and he knows which ones they are!

People food: He doesn't get much (unless he is at my mom's) but he is the prime example of "you give a mouse a cookie...and he'll ask you for some milk."

Horses: If they are on TV, he's watching it...with intensity. Doesn't matter what he was doing before....that's history...now he's watching horses.

Going to the barn: It's like with the walking/running...there have actually been times I've had to take my boots with me and change them at the barn to keep him from getting too excited if I'm not planning on taking him. He almost always goes though.

Riding in the car: Doesn't matter where...if the car door opens up, he's getting in.

His Banana: That would be my mom...(it started as calling her "nana" but she didn't like that, so Banana it is). She likes to give him food....enough said...and her house is the funnest.

Hope you enjoyed a little look at our Shelby (aka Roni...all of our pets have nicknames...random nicknames)

Next up: Daysie