Hi, my name is GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE VII, but my friends call me GENERAL. I am a very large and very strong two year old boy! I came into rescue after my Dad passed away.
I'm learning things that I should have been taught at a much younger age. The rescue folks suspect that I left my mommy and littermates at too young an age, so I never had the opportunity to learn proper doggy social behavior. I tend to be afraid of other dogs, and will react in one of two ways - I will either cower or I will dance around and rush and bump them. I was really afraid of that dog in the mirror at first, but am okay with him now that I know that other dogs are not necessarily going to try to hurt me.
I also was never taught how to behave around humans, and I do have a tendency to jump on them when I am overly happy. I was never taught basic obedience, either, so I really have a lot of catching up to do.
I like taking my foster mom surfing down the sidewalk, but am learning that walks are more fun when I don't pull so hard. With ninety pounds of muscle and four legs to move me, I do have a little bit of an advantage.
Most of the time, I am a sweet, happy, affectionate boy. I do have a stubborn streak a mile wide, though, and have never been taught that I can't always have my way. In fact, I learned on my own that growling and showing my teeth always got me my way. I am now learning that I can't get away with that any more.
I was presumed to have been an outside only dog before, but have shown that I do know some house manners. I know that inside is a great place to live, and I prefer to be inside. Now I am learning that inside dogs have rules that they must follow.
Even after I have learned all kinds of stuff, I will only be made available to an adult-only household with no other pets or possibly one other dog. My ideal home will have experience with dogs who were allowed to get too big for their britches! Fostered in AR.
UPDATE 8/12/09: Hey, it's good ol' General just checkin' in. My foster mom says I'm not such a knothead anymore, even though I have gotten so comfortable here that I have shown the other dogs how to eat toilet paper and countersurf. My foster mom has cut out all that fun stuff, though. She puts me in my crate when she is gone. Drat!!!
I have been getting better about letting her guide me with my collar. I'm not sure, but I think someone may have jerked me around by my collar when I was young, and that has made me not like being led by my collar. The other speculation is that no one made me mind when I was a very young lad, and I am just not quite accepting of authority. I don't think it helped that my first owners had a *pink* collar on me... What were they thinking?? Boys don't wear pink! My foster mom fixed that and now I have a blue collar with moose (meese? mooses?) on it. My foster mom says I am almost as big as a moose...
I like to play ball and will even bring it back (that's better than most of my foster brothers). I like to play with my Irish brudder, and then I met this really fun really really happy German boy and we play play play play! I really like to wrestle and roo-roo and have lots of fun.
I am still a tiny bit too big for my britches, and my mom says I need to go to a forever home where the hoo-mans are in charge and will set boundaries for me. I beg to differ, but she is in charge, after all...
Save Our Setters, Inc.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE VII
