Foxy (we call her Scooter)is a sweet old girl.  She was a stray brought to animal control and we are fostering her until she can have a forever home.  We think she is 8 yrs old or so.  She is very quiet and calm and did not even flinch when introduced to the other dogs and cats in our household.  She appears to be housebroken and quietly goes to the door when she needs to go out.  We had a few piddle accidents the first few days home as we were first letting her roam free in the house with the other dogs and learning her signals for needing to go outside.   She really enjoys wandering around our fenced yard exploring and house and sniffing every inch of the property.  She does not fetch or really play with other dogs, although she gets along fine with our pack of dogs and cats. She stood still and did not mind getting a bath the day she came to our house. She does not respond to the name “Foxy”, so we started play with different sounding names and got a bit of a response from her with the name “Scooter”.  She is not leash trained or follow simple commands, but is totally controllable.  She walks fine on the leash, just roams around.  We are working on teaching her these things.  She is low energy and low maintenance so far with us.  We have never heard her bark. We think she may have been just a breeding dog without a whole lot of training or attention from people.  She has obviously had a few litters.  We have given her unsupervised time in the house a few hours at a time and she did not get in to or chew up anything.  She is protective of her food from other animals, not humans, and would best be fed by herself if there are other animals in the house.  We just give her meals in one of our indoor crates. She is a very sweet and calm dog and will make a very nice pet and deserves an nice place to call her own.  Please email Julie if you are interested at mailto:steven49@msu.edu.  All adoption information, fee and medical records are through HATS. You can also contact shelter 989-773-9721.

Update on Scooter: FYI for your info for people interested in adopting Scooter.  Here are her good points:  She is hilarious.  She does this little back stepping Scooter jig at meal time and when she is happy and excited.  She is very calm.  She lets us put holiday costumes on her!  She does not chew, she is very quiet, she does fine uncrated in the house (for longer times in the house toileting in the house may happen).  When we leave her in the house, she is gated with another dog or two  to the basement where we have linoleum and not carpet.  She is very unhappy and frantic in a crate.  She will quietly lay in one spot for long periods at time (provided it is a sofa or dog bed) She now will come on her own to a human and ask for head rubs.  She did not seek any attention when we first had her home.  She will now lay beside you on the sofa when relaxed but is not a lap dog.  She was totally submissive and calm when being introduced to our other dogs.  She is fine with cats and gives them plenty of distance.  She stands still for baths and is great about nail clipping.  On leash walks she pretty much ignores people and other dogs… everything except what she smells.  She is a hound, so that nose is down and tail up on walks. She will “play” fetch but only with the other dogs.  She gets the concept of chasing the other dogs while they are fetching tennis balls, but won’t chase/fetch anything on her own.  This is the one time when she is noisy…she bays and bays and chases the other dogs fetching tennis balls and Frisbees.  It is hilarious. Here are her problems:  Our biggest worry is that she is an escape artist.  She can get out of crates and digs under fence lines.  We have secured our fence in the weak or dug out spots.  Her new home must have a large secure fenced yard.  We don’t leave her out in the yard unsupervised for long periods of time.  We have an outdoor kennel within the yard we keep her and another dog in if they will be outside unsupervised for awhile.  She goes #1 and #2 in the house if not getting her outside frequently and immediately after eating.  When she came to us she did not know how to play and would not take treats at all…almost like she had never been given food from a hand before.  With training and lots of peanut butter, she is now about 50/50 with coming when called.  She obviously had no traditional training.  When you touch her, grab her collar or try to direct her she shakes and gets very nervous.  I think the poor girl lived her life in a kennel just reproducing and the only touch was for breeding or vet care.  The way we direct her is by putting our hand on her bottom gently and “scooting” her the direction we need her to go.  Hence her name “Scooter”.  Due to 12 teeth being pulled, we soak her kibble in hot water for about 15 minutes to get it soft and add some canola oil to get more calories in her. She was skin and bones when we got her.   We feed her with our other older calm dog.   When they are done we feed the younger ones.  She will not eat and she shakes with high energy dogs vibrating around and waiting for leftovers in her dish.  We were told she was food aggressive when we brought her home. We rarely see this and this only happens if we feed all the dogs in the same room at once and the others approach her food before she is done.  Separate feeding times works like a charm for both of our older dogs.  She will not eat in a crate.  We tried several different foods for her.  She does best on Diamond Natural Chicken and Rice.  All of our dogs have muscled up and lost fat on this food.  Scooter seems to have a sensitive gut, and some treats and commercial foods give her the runs.  This food seems to agree with her well.That is what I can think of for now.  She is a very sweet old girl.  Julie.