A Tale of Two Dogs (And a Cat)

This is Finn. He's a Great Dane, and he's our buddy. We rescued him when he was a year old, and we've had him for 3 years now.

This is Finn's brother, Devon. We rescued him when he was just weaned (he was born at the SPCA). He kindly refrains from killing us all in our sleep, and graciously allows us to exist by his mercy.

But as much as we loved Finn, he was in a bad place. We live in Montreal, and while he was getting enough exercise in the winter, he wasn't getting the dog-on-dog interaction that he really needs. And we're in school, so doggie daycare was just too expensive. So we decided to get another Dane!

Meet Lily. I don't know which piece of shit had her before us, but the fucker cut her ears off with scissors, beat the crap out of her, starved her, and then dumped her on in the side of the road. In Quebec. In February. The SPCA found her when she turned up begging for food. This is a professional photo, and you can still see how gaunt she is and how bad her tail is. (Warning: some slightly gnarly pictures coming...but not *too* gnarly, because this is a happy story)

Here you can see her again. It was -20 when I took this picture. At this point, she preferred the cold, and would try to lay out in the snow, even when she would shiver all over.

Here she is about two weeks after we got her home. She's started to fill out here, but you can see how gaunt she was still. When we picked her up, she was 20 lbs underweight...when her healthy bodyweight is 100lbs.

Here's what the end of her tail looked like. There were also giant abcesses further up, but I'll spare you that.

This is what that tail did. It's called 'happy tail' - they wag compulsively. It slings blood *everywhere*. For three months, every surface in our apartment under 6 ft high looked like this.

She was also very fear aggressive. She had bitten people and dogs 3 times previously, and had been returned from adoption because of it. We knew this bringing her home, and we were determined to try anyway.

Starting to bandage her tail. This was about a month in. She was warming up to us slowly, but sttill a bit in shock.

She and Finn started to get along! We saw spirit!

...then disaster happened. While walking her and Finn, we were attacked by an off-leash dog. A Rottweiler. Lily went completely terrified, and in the process she bit poor Finn.

It was deep. Like, as deep as my pinky finger.

She bit me too. It wasn't intentional, just a frantic 'OMGADOGOFFLEASHISATTACKINGGETMEAWAY' trashing when I unwisely got between her and the attacking dog (ironically, it did NOT get bitten). In case you're wondering: yes, it's fucking terrifying to get between two Great Danes and a Rottweiler, all in battle mode.

To get over the incident, we decided a road trip was in order. We took 3 weeks and drove from Montreal to tour a bunch of National Parks in the Rockies. Here she is at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. (Highly recommended).

And here she is in Jasper

And here she is in a bar in Butte, Montana, trying to figure out why the giant dog in the back isn't responding when she barks.

When we got back, everyone was friends again.

They even started to play!

And to sleep together in the hallway.

But this morning...guys, this morning...our wild dog that would sleep on the floor beside the open window in March, because she was used to being wild in the snow had wrapped herself up in a blanket on the couch, and refused to move. She was snoring her head off! Someone is officially domesticated.

And home :)