Introducing Cooper Cornelius!

I have been wanting a dog for many years about 10 to be exact. Since always lived in apartments and condos for the last 10 years I didn't feel right to have a dog cooped up inside a house. Especially a large dog. I wanted to wait until I had a real house with a fenced yard to get a dog. We now have that house with a yard we started searching on Petfinder.com We wanted a younger dog that was between 4 months and 2 years old. The reason why is because of our two cats. The younger the dog you get the easier it is to bring them all together. We also wanted a dog that was good around kids... for whenever we decide to start a family.  After a few weeks of searching we found our perfect pup!

Here is Coopers story: he was found on February 28th as a stray in Boise, ID running down a busy road! Some kind woman picked him up and brought him to the local pound. He was there for a few weeks and no one wanted to adopt him! I don't understand why because he is just so amazing and smart! I believe they were going to put him down and the wonderful people at the Alternative Humane Society of Whatcom County stepped in and saved him. I guess Cooper rode all the way from Boise to Bellingham (10hrs) in the car and was so wonderful the whole trip with minimal potty breaks.

On Saturday March 10th we drove up to Bellingham to meet him and see if he was the perfect fit for us! As soon as Terry and I walked through the door Cooper ran up to us and was just so happy and excited to meet us! I crouched down and he ran up in between my legs and gave me tons of kisses and gentle hugs. My heart instantly melted and I knew right then and there we had found our perfect match and Cooper had found his forever home with us!



The real test was going to be how our cats reacted. They have both been around dogs before and did OK tolerating them. They just don't like dogs that bark at them. So the day we brought Coop home we put the cats in our bedroom and let them sniff each other through the door. We bought a few books on puppies and training and decided that we would use the tethering technique and keep him by our side at all times for a few weeks. This also helps with potty training since they did said that Cooper was working on that. Plus its good training to teach the dog that he needs to stay by us and not wander around the house. We are teaching him that we are the Alpha's and the ones in charge, not him. After keeping the cats in the bedroom for a few hours they met for the first time and the cats were OK. They were very cautious of Cooper and were doing the slow walk and stair methods at the dog. Not quite sure what to think of him. The whole time cooper just sat and watched them. He didn't jump or whine or bark at the cats at all. They are pretty much use to him. Butch our cat is very curious and wants to play with him but Cooper of course plays too hard so he will eventually hiss at cooper. Barley our other cat for the most part is just staying away and spending lots of time in rooms that Coop is not in or in his cat stand. He does come out when the Cooper is sleeping.

From day one Cooper impressed us with how smart he is. In just two days we taught him to sit, speak, lay down, fetch, rollover, shake, wave bye bye and his "be sneaky" move. He has not had any accidents in the house and might be almost fully potty trained?  We are extremely impressed with him and are looking forward to teaching him many more tricks. We plan on taking him to some obedience classes, socialization classes and eventually enrolling him in some agility classes! 

Cooper loves to be near us and when Terry is working in his office he loves to lay underneath his desk and play with his toys!

We are working really hard with Cooper especially Terry in teaching him new things and how to act every day. Our hope is for Cooper to grow into a wonderfully well behaved dog! We have been taking him on long walks every day and he continues to impress us. Every dog he has met he has been wonderful. We have came across some very aggressive dogs and he reacted so well. Didn't cower or bark back just kept cool and kept on walking with us like a good dog! He was recently around my nephew who is 3 and did wonderfully with him. He also does wonderful in the car. He just lays in the back seat and falls asleep.

We gave him his first bath last week and he did great with that too. Didn't try to jump out of the tub. He just stood there and even drank some water from the tub. We dried him off and turned him into a super dog and he romped and played fetch with us!

Since Terry had to work in Idaho all week Cooper is out with Terry on his parents farm. Spending lots of time with their dog Maggie, their cats. He has been playing in the acres of land they have and getting along wonderfully with all their pets. He has been very good and is just having a ball playing and running around.