Patch turned to out have a good, appreciative personality and had already had some house training. My first concern was that he'd poop on the rug, but on the first night he walked to the back door and stood patiently, looking at us on the couch occasionally. "Oh, he's asking to go out !" - and in all the time we've had him, there has only been two accidents in the house and both times were because we stayed out too long.
We began by taking Patch to the vet, of course and the first place we took him said they could hear a heart murmur and they would not advise allowing him to have surgery. Surgery ? As part of the rescue agreement we had to have Patch neutered, but the murmur meant we had to wait. In fact, the first vet was rather heartless...though I guess they were trying to be detached and rational...but they said we shouldn't get too attached to Patch and perhaps we should even return him to the shelter ! "No way" we said. The moment we took Patch's leash we knew, as long as he didn't hurt anyone, he'd be ours for life.
We took Patch to another vet from then on, Dr. Neal Weiner of Pet Care Naturally in Old Shasta, and he was great. He examined Patch and said all his problems: being underweight, dandruff and his anal gland infections would all clear up without lotions, potions or pills. The answer was to feed Patch a diet of good quality food, not commercial dog food. This is something many vets will not tell you - you might think there's a "conspiracy theory" at work, but I think they're just not taught the right things at vet colleges. He said we should feed Patch what you might call human food: regular grocey store ground beef, raw vegetables, oatmeal and even yogurt. It was more expensive than commercial food, but within a few months his problems all cleared up and he's never been ill since. We hope this will continue for his whole life and, if you're counting up the money, we think that feeding him good food now will reduce vet bills in his future.
So life with Patch began. He looked huge walking through the house..."Oh my god, he's a giant !" I used to think. But he never knocked anything over, not even when he was playing. We had bought a few toys for him and we said "Here's you toy" as we handed him one of them. He lay on the ground and started nibbling at it. "Here's your bed" we said, pointing at the pile of blankets over an old foam mattress we'd laid next to our bed. He lay right down on it. He seemed to know we were defining his boundaries and he very rarely strayed outside them. Sometimes we'd come home and find that one of Deanne's toy cats had been mistaken for a toy and been "cleaned" for us...the fake fur was sticking straight out, looking like it'd been smeared with hair gel !