November 13 - Apollo Radcliffe

I've been devastated the last 2 months since Amelia crossed the rainbow bridge (I still have bouts of crying). Julia and Luke were ready for a new dog almost immediately while Jillian has become deathly afraid of dogs. Jillian's fear of dogs is what prompted me to consider getting another dog sooner rather than later. Julia and Luke suggested a golden retriever and as cute as they are...our lives have been designed around a black dog.

We have super dark floors, both cars have black interior and I wear almost all black. Could we handle blonde fur everywhere? JD and I thought back to Gainesville, where we had off-white tile floors with two black dogs (Amelia and Guinness). It was horrible-I swept multiple times a day and our house always looked filthy. So..we (I) decided we needed a black or dark brown dog. 

I follow a few re-homing and rescue sites on Facebook. Two Fridays ago, a local shelter posted a picture of a male, black lab. I looked at JD and said "this looks like a pure bred black lab." JD said it was probably part pitbull and promptly forgot about it. I didn't forget about it...the next day I took Julia and Jillian to the shelter to check him out. He was totally calm in his kennel and we went into a room for a meet and greet. He was very chill and didn't jump up on anyone. We spent about 15min with him and he was very relaxed. On our way out, we passed by another dog going into the room and they had a positive interaction. I sent JD a picture of the dog and a video and after a quick call (Who is the dog in that picture? You are at the animal shelter?), I put in an application for him. We picked him up a week ago and he's been fantastic! 

making himself comfortable

So, first things first. The name. My name for him was Radcliffe Emerson. No one in the family was on board with this. JD and I were at opposite ends of the name spectrum as I like human names for pets (like Radcliffe or Oliver or Charles) and he likes animal names (like Shadow). We finally told Julia and Luke to come up with 5 names they both like and we would pick one. So....welcome Apollo! I added Radcliffe as his middle name because I couldn't resist sneaking it in!

He's a snuggler!

Health status. Well, our poor Apollo (our vet estimates he's 1.5-2 years old) was not being taken care of properly. He is 20 lbs underweight and riddled with worms, including heartworms. Heartworms are spread through infected mosquitoes. The good news is that they are treatable and cannot be spread from dog to dog. He is taking an oral antiobiotic twice a day for 30 days (this kills the parasites on the worms and weakens the worms) and then will have 2 shots to kill the actual heart worms. After the shots it takes another month for the worms to die, break down and leave his system. The tough part about all of this is that he cannot exercise until the treatment is done. If his heart rate gets too high, he's at risk of a stroke. So we aren't playing ball with him and he's restricted to short walks only. 

Luke & Apollo sleeping the other night

He's only been with us for a week, but he's been great. He is extremely calm. He doesn't jump and we have yet to hear him bark. He survived a girl scout meeting with no issues LOL. He was definitely in a home previously who taught him not to eat human food as Jillian threw a plate of rice and chicken on the floor the other day and he just stood there looking at it. 

I'll be sure to update everyone with Apollo's adventures with us. As my friend Jill said...he hit the jackpot being adopted by us!!

The name list

Welcome Apollo Radcliffe!