Tobi 09-523 [1]

Sponsored by: Rick and Pat O.

January 10, 2010:  Meet Tobi! Tobi is a sweet senior boy who was rescued on Christmas Eve from a shelter in Sioux Falls, SD.  Because of the horrible weather conditions, he couldn't be transported to his foster home in the Twin Cities metro until New Year's Eve.  Many, many thanks from Tobi and his foster family to John and Sheila, for springing Tobi from the shelter and keeping him safe, and for transporting him part way to his foster home.  You guys totally rock, and Tobi sends kisses!

Tobi has been at his foster home for just over a week and has been settling in.  He has seen the vet and aside from needing to gain some weight is basically a healthy guy.  He has kind of an "offset" snout, he looks like he had a facelift on one side of his face but not the other.  Dr. G hasn't figured out what might have caused this, but he has some weird scarring on his nose so we are thinking maybe he tangled with a porcupine, or something worse, and it caused an infection that affected the nerves on his face.  It makes him look like he is always smirking at you--adds to his rakish charm!  He has some horrible teeth and desperately needs some dental work, he has no enamel at all on his canines (down to just pulp) so they will need to be pulled at an absolute minimum.  He does have cataracts so Dr. G puts his age at closer to 10 years old than the 8 years listed on his paperwork.

Mr. Tobias was a stray, so we don't know much about him.  We're working on teaching him his name, he doesn't have any idea when you are talking to him.  He gets along really well with the resident dogs here, understands dog language really well and figured out pretty quickly to keep a wide berth around the resident snarky female.  After a few days of Sassy growling at him every time he thought about moving, they are getting along well, playing together and running through the snow together.  He and Wyatt wrestle together as well and try to see who can fly through the snow faster, and Tobi usually wins.  He's incredibly graceful when he runs, just floats on top of the snow.  He's not too interested in chewing on things, we think because of his mouth being sore, so it will be interesting to see if he starts to play with toys once his teeth are fixed.

We are crating Tobi when we can't supervise him due to his background.  He was found in a chicken coop with another dog (who escaped) and some dead chickens.  No one knows who did what, but we have a cat and we don't want to take any chances.  We've noticed that Tobi has a strong prey drive when out in the yard, if he sees a squirrel or rabbit he is gone and there is no calling him off of it.  For this reason, at this point we don't believe Tobi should go to a home with cats or small animals.  We're working with him and our cat and he is getting better, but we don't completely trust him.  For this same reason, we are insisting on a secure physical fence in Tobi's forever home.  When he sees something and takes off, he doesn't listen to anything, and if he gets going he is gone and you will not catch up to him unless he decides to come back--might explain how he became a stray in the first place.  He's a wonderful dog who loves people but he will run given the opportunity.

More on Tobias/Tobi/Tobi-wan Kenobi as we get to know him better and get his vetting taken care of.  Sorry for the quality of the pictures, he is really scared of the camera for some reason so we have to take everything outside with a telephoto lens.Hopefully we can get him past this and get some better pictures of him, so you can all see how adorable he is!