* * * COURTESY LISTING * * *
Please contact abbie.sea@gmail.com if you are interested in this dog.
Cowboy is a male, around two to three years old, with beautiful reddish-brown fur. He has been neutered and is fully vaccinated. He is a larger-medium-sized dog with a large head and a powerful body. Cowboy was rescued in Taiwan and has the look of a Taiwan Formosan Dog.
Cowboy needs a person who can train him and he needs a home where he can get tons of exercise. He is very strong, smart, and affectionate.
You might say he's "strongly food motivated." He just LOVES to eat! If there's food around, that's all he can think about, and when he gets it, he inhales it. I thought this would change when he realized his meals were a regular event... but in all this time he's always still just as excited. When it's time to eat, he gets beside himself and makes cute talking/barking sounds. When I first met him he would try to climb all over me when I brought out his dinner, but now he knows how to go jump into his crate when it's time to be fed.
It seems like Cowboy was once a well-looked after pet. Somehow he wound up on the streets and sick. As the disease took its toll, Cowboy lay in one spot, too fevered to move, outside the office of a local community college. Many people noticed him, but maybe they were scared of dogs, didn't know what to do, or didn't have any place to keep a dog even if they wanted to help him. So for several days, the people in the office just stepped around him whenever they had to go in or out. After days of watching Cowboy lie there, one person at the office could no longer take it and she asked me for help. She said she couldn't stand seeing him suffer there day after day, but she was also very afraid of dogs and didn't know how to approach him or where to take him. She knew I had a lot of dogs already so she asked me to help her help Cowboy.
It turned out Cowboy had a high fever, and he was diagnosed with distemper. The vet made it clear that distemper is fatal most of the time.
But Cowboy is stronger than the average dog! He survived the distemper! The vet now gives him a clean bill of health.
Today Cowboy is a different dog, full of life and spunk.
His first foster home was in an apartment; there Cowboy proved himself to be quiet, calm, and loving, and had no trouble waiting to go outside. He began to play as his health improved and his caregiver found him to be quite talented. He discovered that Cowboy already knew how to ride a scooter: this dog had obviously been someone's pet once upon a time. His first caregiver also discovered that Cowboy cringed at raised arms, so it was obvious that he had been hit in the past. Cowboy also soon became an excellent ball catcher!
Now Cowboy really enjoys scooter rides and playing fetch the ball. He'll jump onto my scooter and actually sit on the seat when he's waiting to go for a ride. When playing ball, he does some really amazing four-paws-off-the-ground catches in midair! One thing... he really loves his balls. Once he catches one, he doesn't actually like giving it back! But he also really loves to catch. If I've got two balls, he's faced with a dilemma, and will drop the first ball in order to go for the second. So sometimes I use two balls, working with him to give up a ball for the immediate pleasure of catching one again... I think he has the makings of an excellent frisbee dog, if someone actually took the time to train him! If left alone with a ball, he will treasure it and hide it and play with it all by himself and in a day or two he will have loved it to pieces... literally.
Cowboy's second foster home is with me. (His first foster person had to leave the country... we couldn't let Cowboy go back out on the streets after his heroic and triumphant battle with distemper; I decided to bring him here.) I've found him to be incredibly loyal and sweet. He's got a very bouncy, boisterous personality.
Cowboy plays very rowdily and he comes on strong when he meets other dogs. All my female dogs get along with him, although the youngest one (Jiajia) is the only one who really enjoys his boisterous games with him. Another young female (Xihu) becomes very timid when he's around, and the other older females just give him withering looks and completely ignore his rough play advances.
He really loves to play! He can't get enough. I hope he can find a home where he has a playful companion! I think he might do better if his main dog companion is a female, although he gets along fine with some males.
Two of my males get along well with him, (that is they all just kind of coexist, but don't really play), but another two of my males have started fights with him. In both cases it was the other dog that started the fight with Cowboy. I think that there are several reasons for this; if you would like to consider adopting Cowboy please contact me and I will explain further!
I would definitely introduce him to new dogs in under controlled conditions.
Cowboy is NOT good with cats and might be too boisterous for small children. But he loves everyone he meets! Cowboy is great on leash (and also great recall off the leash). He is housetrained but may need a refresher course as he adjusts to his new routine and environment.
In order to develop to his full potential, I think that Cowboy truly needs a home of his own and an owner who understands strong boisterous dogs and who can give him lots of love and clear limits. Cowboy will always need lots of exercise. He really enjoys going for runs next to my scooter. He's fast! And he has a friend who sometimes comes by and takes him for jogs along the river. Cowboy is so very loyal and faithful; he always sticks close on the scooter runs and jogs, and he comes right back to his home; when running him here it's not necessary to have him on leash.
Cowboy is still in Taiwan, waiting for his chance at a better life in the US. Arrangements to fly him to SFO airport will be made once a home can be found for him. Please send an email to request an adoption application. There is an adoption fee to help cover a portion of Cowboy's medical and transport expenses.
Cowboy's really strong and full of life these days, and he has so much love to give. He's a joy to behold. He is an optimistic survivor and I hope he will very soon finally have a shot at the life he deserves: a real home and a person he can give all his devotion to.
According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Taiwan is among the worst places in the world for animals. There are at least 2 million stray dogs in Taiwan, many of them 2nd or 3rd generation strays. There are virtually no humane societies, shelters, or even laws prohibiting cruelty towards animals. Government-run dog pounds don't offer humane euthanization--instead, dogs are electrocuted, drowned, burned, or left to starve to death. Certainly very little if anything is done to curb the reproduction cycle. Strays and cruelty towards dogs are such a fact of life there that most people turn a blind eye. Horrible abuse cases such as that involving (WARNING -Graphic: ) "Thin-Necked Blackie"happen more
often than we like to think and right in the public eye.
Needless to say, the chances of survival let alone a life of happiness for a homeless dog in Taiwan is almost nil. Generally, dogs are not valued as companions and family members there as they are here. Small grassroots rescue teams in Taiwan like The Animal Rescue Team, Animals Taiwan,and Taipei Abandoned Animal Rescue Foundation work tirelessly to do what they can to give at least a small percentage of the millions of stray dogs a chance at a better life. And in the majority of cases, the only chance lies outside of Taiwan.
