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They
say that dogs don't smile, but they haven't met our Chelsea.
Everyone who meets her remarks on her happy, friendly face.
She's very social and friendly, and makes friends everywhere she goes.
Chelsea (originally Shelby) joined our family in June 2010.
After my parents had adopted their dog from the SPCA (more on that
later), we started to think about getting a dog, so I started
regularly checking the SPCA website. We were drawn to her by her
absolutely adorable picture of this little, confused puppy
on your website. As soon as I met her and we walked around the
SPCA grounds, I knew that this was the dog for us. She was
excited, but she was just so happy and sweet that she completely won
over my heart in minutes.
 We
took her home on a Friday evening. When we first brought her
home, she was a little nervous and actually got sick to her stomach.
As we cleaned her up, she opened up to us and ever since, she's been
our wonderful dog. By that Sunday, it was like she had always
been a part of our family.
Since we already had a three year old cat, Kiisu, we were a little
worried about the two getting along, particularly because Kiisu is a
dwarf and weighs only 8lbs. The dog immediately decided that the
cat was her best friend, and follows her everywhere – much to the
cat's frustration. Over time, the cat has warmed up to her.
Now, they take naps together and sometimes even work together to sneak
food from the humans (especially cheese). For us, the cutest
thing is that Chelsea recognizes which toys belong to Kiisu and will
not touch them, because those belong to the cat.
 When
we got
Chelsea,
the SPCA staff thought that she was a flat-coated retriever mix.
As she has grown up, she has changed her appearance quite
dramatically. At one point, we were sure that she was primarily
a retriever, then she looked more like a German Shepherd, now we think
that she also has some Border Collie. When asked what kind of
dog she is, we simply say “miscellaneous”. In any case, it
doesn't matter because she's our wonderful dog. In fact, she
looks exactly like a dog; if you asked a young child to draw a dog,
they would likely end up drawing Chelsea.
As her appearance kept changing, we kept wondering what size she'd
eventually be. The SPCA staff estimated, based on her paws, that
she'd likely be around 50 lbs full grown and they weren't too far off.
She stopped growing a few months ago and is now around 45 pounds, so
she's definitely a medium-sized dog.
 My
parents also adopted a dog from your SPCA in the winter of 2010.
Their dog Rusty (originally Jordi), a dachshund, is Chelsea's best
friend (after Kiisu, of course). We took them both to your
Christmas party, where the two shared an adorable picture with Santa.
Despite their considerable size difference, Chelsea and Rusty will
play for hours and hours, until they both collapse from exhaustion.
The only thing that they don't do together is swim. Chelsea
can't be kept out of the water, while Rusty will not even go near the
shoreline ...
Chelsea loves playing fetch, swimming, travelling in the car, and
going out in the boat. She also enjoys trips to the dog park,
especially Bruce Pit. We crate-trained her, and she still sleeps
in her kennel every night. At around
9pm
each night, she will sit at the stairs and wait for one of us to bring
her to her kennel and tuck her in. She falls asleep instantly,
and we don't hear a peep out of her until we wake her up in the
morning.
 Although
Chelsea is very well-behaved around the house, she still gets excited
and distracted outside, so we have enrolled her in a basic obedience
class. We're at the midway point in the class, and we're
already noticing a difference. She has become known in the class
as “party girl” because she loves to socialize with all the dogs.
We plan to also try some agility training in the spring.
Chelsea is just a wonderful dog and we want to sincerely thank all the
kind, friendly staff of the SPCA for taking such good care of our
little girl.
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