Derby

Beagle, Siberian Husky, German Shepherd, Lab Mix

            Ive had Derby for about seven years now; I got her when she was 6 months old. We got her from a family working with Petsmart at the time. Shes got many breeds of dog in her, most dominant are the beagles size/body shape, shepherds fur coloring, and the huskys white eye coloring in her right eye. So, no, its not a deficiency or anything wrong with her vision. Shes spayed but only had her claws trimmed once I think. Shes an outside dog and lives in my backyard tied up to a tree with a metal chain, has a doghouse near that with her food and water nearby. We decided it necessary to tie her up to the tree because she began escaping from the yard by jumping over the fence in the corner of the yard and getting away.

            One day my father decided to take her for a walk or put her on the leash and bring her into the front yard for some reason, [keep in mind shes got short powerful legs], and she got real rowdy and tore away from him so fast, he fell flat on his ass and she ran away with the leash on her neck. An hour or two later I remember chasing her up by the block in my neighborhood, I yelled like crazy that night. I spotted her later on, she saw me, stood still, then darted away in the opposite direction to a main road. She ran into the street and was hit by a car on the side and back of her left leg. She whimpered like a wounded dog, which is what she was at the time. I recall panicking and standing by her while she cried, trying to get her off the road, which I did, and some bystanders coming over to interrogate the incident. Luckily enough the one who hit my dog lived ten feet away from where it had occurred. It was around 8 in the evening on a school night, lets say Monday, so I darted home, about 100 meters from the accident, and ran in the backyard and told my dad that we needed to bring Derby to the vet because she had been hit. While my family was mildly poor at the time, and my dads lack of motivation, he never did bring her to the vet. He ended up bringing a wheel barrel to the scene with me, he put the dog into it, then proceeded to yelling at the driver who had hit her, while I knew it wasnt much her fault at all, I knew he was just humoring me for the sake of my mental anguish. Anyhow we brought her home and lay her in the garage, where I tended to her every day with food and what not, I noticed her left hind leg must have been broken, but I was really glad she had even survived, as at the time I wasnt too familiar with many animals surviving car collisions; my friend Jons dog recently died in a car incident and my deepest condolences go out to him as I write this. She mostly healed within a few months, or half a year, hard to remember now. She runs like a bullet now, or has been in the last few years. I dont play with her much anymore and I hate myself for that, but Ill be sure to play with her this upcoming summer.

            Derby is very well trained, besides her lack of obedience in a time of mayhem, ie. out-of-bounds my house territory and running away. But other than that, she can do a couple nifty things. I trained her to sit down on command, lay-down on command, and go to her house on command. When she spots a squirrel by a tree or somewhere in the yard, I can yell, Go get em! and shell speed off to try and catch it, which brings me to another story. One day I did as I just described, and she chased after a squirrel by the fence, it ran up the fence and got away, and she ran into the fence and happened so quickly, at the time I was convinced she had run into the rodent and was bit, because there was moderate bleeding on her paw, besides her loud whimpers. I was scared to hell and back, as Id thought of the possibility of her getting rabies; the rodents in New York are douche bags. Anyhow, I waited to see symptoms of it and she never did foam at the mouth or go crazy, so I figured shes just hurt her paw on the fencing. Back to the tricks, the last trick she can perform involves standing on her hind legs and putting her front legs up onto my hands, and kind of dance, its real cute ;)