the Noranator

This...is Nora. She is my 5th foster dog with Kansas K-9 Resq. She is a purebred German Shepherd who came to us from a breeder who was having "economic trouble". We are pretty sure that the trouble was that Nora wouldn't have puppies. Nora took some time to settle into our household. For the first week she always had a look on her face that said "I'm sure you're very nice people...but I would like to go home now". It took her a VERY long time to get comfortable with Michael...and just about as much time to learn to tolerate Lucy.

Lucy's story will come next.

Nora is completely obsessed with her KONG ball. She is so obsessed that we had to run out to the store to get a replacement the moment we lost the 1st one because she wouldn't stop looking for it. As luck would have it, a few days after losing the 1st one, it magically appeared back in our yard. So now we have two...and play with two at a time to maximize the amount of running time and minimize the amount of trying to get the ball away from Nora time.

Our recent most favorite thing to do is pack up the dogs and take them down the road to a Middle School that is surrounded by open fields. As it is summer, the school is deserted most of the time. This allows us to let the dogs out, off leash, to run around in the fields. We throw the red balls as far as we can and Nora and Lucy run to get them and bring them back. Lucy is actually chasing Nora, not the ball, because Nora never lets Lucy get to the ball first. Even if there are two balls. Nora is very good at returning to us when called. Lucy sometimes stops and thinks about it...asking "where's my motivation" before she decides to come back to us.

We like the open fields better than the backyard for ball play because Nora doesn't stop running until she catches the ball. Sometimes, in the back yard, she doesn't stop until she hits the fence. I don't always think that is very good for her.

Nora is not suppose to be a member of our family, but we have had her for 8 months now and it is hard to not think of her as ours. She has a little bit of separation anxiety and is pretty needy. She "needs" to play ball more often than we think she needs to. She also can't be crated (she breaks out of them by prying the bars with her teeth). These issues are daunting to many perspective adopters...so we've had trouble placing her.