Meet Red

The time has finally come to share our big news! We have expanded our family… by 4 paws! Everyone, meet Red!

Red is a 2 year old male husky mix from Texas. He came to live with us on January 16th of this year (2025). How did this happen, you may ask? Let me tell you…

Chris and I have always been dog lovers. We’ve talked a lot about starting a rescue or animal sanctuary, now that we have more space to do it. I’ve looked into it a little, but we weren’t quite ready for that big of a commitment yet. With that being said, I’ve always followed a bunch of rescues on social media and always encourage friends and family (and Chris) that these pets should be adopted by them/us.

So, every time I see a cute dog that I want, I send it to Chris. Over the years, I’ve noticed that he only really responds to the big furry ones. Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes and other big fluffy dogs. So I started watching for those to target Chris with. (Insert evil laugh)

A few months ago, I came across a picture of Red. He was super handsome with beautiful blue eyes. I sent the post to Chris and jokingly told him that I had applied to adopt him. I was expecting him to be mad but he sounded interested instead. After I told him that I was only joking, but was going to seriously inquire about him, he gave me the ok!

Shortly after I applied, I found out that we were approved to adopt! I was so surprised because so many people had been commenting on him and wanted to adopt him. Now I had to break the news to Chris. He was excited. But also a little worried that we might be taking on too much. Oh well – too late to back out now!

The rescue that we adopted him from was located in Texas. They had a transportation service of volunteers that move animals all across the US, to their new homes. I really wanted to have him with us for Christmas, but they weren’t able to transport him to Michigan until the middle of January. So that’s what we planned on.

Fast forward to Red’s “Gotcha Day”… I was SUPER sick! I had pneumonia, an ear infection and my lovely recurrent kidney stones. So I wasn’t exactly up for making the 5 hour roundtrip drive. This left Chris with the responsibility. I was so sad that I couldn’t be there to meet him the moment he got out of the van! But Chris was happy enough to do it.

So what is he like? How has it been? Let me fill you in!

Red has been with us for almost 3 weeks now. He’s adjusting really well, but it hasn’t been without any hiccups. He’s more of a puppy than I was really expecting and needs a little training – he likes to jump and isn’t the best listener. We also found out that he is way more vocal than Dale and Luna and also likes to dig and chew on toys that the kids leave around. We’re almost positive that he was abused by someone, because he gets really scared if you yell at him or if you try to grab his collar and pull him. He will scream and cry like you REALLY hurt him, even if you barely touched him. But that seems to be getting better as he learns to trust us.

Dale and Luna are doing pretty well with him. Dale has become really jealous in his old age, and doesn’t like when people (especially Chris) give other dogs attention over him. Because of this, we were a little nervous with how he would react to Red being here full time. In the beginning, Dale would just push Red out of the way to get his attention fulfillment. He still does that, to be fair. Now they actually play and nap together. It’s really cute!

Luna on the other hand… she’s just a brat. She’s a lot like a cat. She only wants attention when she wants it, she doesn’t want anyone else to touch her toys, even if she’s not playing with them and she rarely likes to play with anyone other than Chris and Dale. However, she is learning to tolerate Red. She seems like she couldn’t care less about him, but she’s now growling at him or anything.

Now for the other critters in/near our house… Bridget, our outdoor cat, and Rosie, Patti’s bird, are not fans of Red. At all. And… he wants to eat them. He is definitely a hunter and when he locks in on the cat or the bird, it takes a lot to get him to leave them alone. He’s not necessarily aggressive, but he does want to eat them. As you can imagine, this has caused some issues for the kitty and the birdy. We are still working through those, and will keep you posted on the progress! Haha For now, we’re doing our best to keep them out of Red’s sight.

He and the kids really seem to like each other. Red has especially seemed to attach to Jenna. I’ve even seen him try to pee on her to mark her as his. Hahaha Gross! We’ve found him laying in her bed, hanging out in her room and putting up with her toddler pets. It’s adorable.

I love the fact that we’ve been able to adopt him and give him a loving home. He fits in so well and has so much personality! I can’t wait to share more stories about him as we move forward as a bigger family.

So what do you think?! Are we crazy for taking on another dog? How bad do you think his shedding is going to be? Any questions about his story? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Crystal