Adopted by Carina and Dave – November 2014 – Snohomish, Washington, USA
I had been watching VAFA postings provided by Farah Ravon for some time when I saw Nader’s picture and the urgent need for him to have a temporary foster home when he arrived in the Seattle area. We already had 2 senior dogs and had recently moved from a 2 bedroom condominium to our dream home on five acres.
I could not imagine being the reason for Nader to not have a temporary home that would allow him to come to the United States. He had quite the journey traveling via Germany and landing in Vancouver, Canada. From Vancouver he was driven across the border to Seattle where he spent the night with his companion Nazli. Dave brought Nader from PAWS in Lynnwood to our home the next day. Nader was very tired and sad…until he saw Rover and Bailey and realized he still had a pack to belong to.
We were very worried the first night that Nader showed his teeth, guarding his food when the other dogs came near. This was the only time that Nader showed any aggression and who can blame him after all he went through.We had a terrible time getting him used to being in a kennel at night. I never heard such feral noises coming from an animal. We tried everything – leaving him downstairs alone, in our room with the kennel covered, uncovered, and facing the other dogs. Eventually we could not bear it and put the kennel outside and left Nader in our room with our other two dogs.Nader loves our dogs more than he loves us. Rover only likes Nader when he does not have to share him with us.
I have caught them playing outside or laying under a tree together. Bailey has been a bit of a surrogate mother to Nader and he looks to her for companionship first. Nader has started to love Dave and I more and can often be seen laying next to Dave in our bed…taking over my pillow. Despite him being so long he still believes he should be Dave’s lap dog.Even though Nader has free reign of our property, he spends one day a week at a local Doggy Day care so that he can socialize with other dogs and burn off some of his never ending energy. He knows when it’s time to go and you have never seen a happier dog.We’ve had lots of laughs with Nader.
Despite having food available for him all the time, he prefers to pull bread or other goodies off our kitchen countertop. His most recent acquisition was a wrapped package of apple, cinnamon rolls that friends had given us for Christmas. We do our best to keep things out of his reach – but were quite surprised to catch him standing completely on our kitchen island. The funniest thing that Nader does is burp. He will look straight at us with a serious stare and let out the loudest burp you could ever hear.Thank you for blessing us with Nader. When you have an amazing dog come into your life – it seems like it has always been there. He makes us laugh and smile every day and we are ever so grateful that you entrusted his well being to us. We utterly love him.
