Meet Malcom. He's my ever faithful running, walking, dragging partner. He's roughly a year old and hates getting his picture taken, the cold, being wet, and pretty much anything that might get him dirty.
Malcom joined our family in November of this past year. My daughter, Little Miss, was given a choice for her birthday. We told her she could either get a shiny new Nintendo DS or rescue a dog from our local animal shelter. She is 6 and my husband was sure she'd choose the video game; otherwise, I'm positive he would have never allowed me to make such an offer. (He's not a fan of animals.) My ever compassionate Little Miss chose to rescue a dog.
We made 2 trips to the animal shelter before we decided to bring Malcom home with us. The first trip we took was just to get to know the dogs and talk about possible choices. We viewed each dog at the shelter (which was heartbreakingly full) and I wanted to bring them all home. She had a decision to make. The moment Little Miss laid eyes on Malcom I knew he was going to be joining our family. She lit up. We asked the attendant if we could take him out to the yard on a leash to see how he acted.
Malcom was a bit jumpy so I was apprehensive. With 3 children, day care kids, and a constant stream of nurses and care takers coming through our house I wasn't sure how we would adjust to having a jumpy dog. But he fit all our qualifiers. We wanted a large dog, a protective dog, someone for me to run with, a dog around a year old, short-haired, preferably black lab and who would have a decent life expectancy. Malcom fit the bill. He was everything we wanted and more.
The next day we picked him up. His name was Ronald at the time, which Chloe changed on sight. We found out his story before we took him home. Ronald had been found at a McDonald's parking lot. He was scared and starving. When the woman rescued him he jumped from her moving vehicle. He was pretty badly beaten up when he arrived at the shelter. He was skinny, had some cuts, his ears were roughed up on the ends, and he was anxious.
We brought Malcom home. He was still a bit beaten up from his escapades when he was rescued. Everything I read said to give him roughly a month to adjust to living in a new place. The first month had a lot of ups and downs. We had one near run away, (he ran around the neighbors house and came right back.) lots of accidents, lots of toys, lots of snuggles, lots of giggles, and lots of moments that made me question whether or not this would work. We made a commitment to this pup and to teach our children responsibility. Malcom calmed down and became a great member of our family.
We are now in the process of training Malcom to run with me. The first time I took him out for a walk he pulled and pulled and pulled. I think he is rather new to the leash. It seems each time we go out we have a little better of a time getting him to not pull. Today for about 1/3 of our 3.8 miles he was great. I'm beginning to think the road to a well trained running dog is paved with 10,000 no's but we are making progress. Instead of having to stop every step to make him stop pulling we can go for a few steps at a time, soon it will be a block.
We thought we were rescuing Malcom when we brought him home with us. Turns out Malcom has given us each such a great part of himself. Every day he rescues us a little more. I'm so proud of my daughter having chosen to sacrifice a toy to save a life. I'm proud of how far Malcom has come and I'm proud of my family for having given him more than a place to sleep but a home.
So here's to running all over 2015 with Malcom, my running buddy, always at my side.
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