Jonas

On Saturday, June 6, 2009 we adopted Jonas, a Treeing Walker Coonhound. Although we didn't know it at the time, the breed was intended for raccoon hunting and chasing them onto trees, even following them sometimes to get at the prey. Walker is the name of a guy who introduced some specific traits into the breed. Jonas's paperwork reflects that he was picked up as a stray in Mississippi in March 2009, and he is estimated to have been three years old at that time.

I had seen Jonas about 3 or 4 weeks ago when I went to the Humane Society to sign up as a volunteer. Last Saturday was my first event at Colonie Crossings, where the Humane Society had a table, and Jonas was one of three dogs that interacted with the public. After watching him be friendly with all sorts of people, as well as their various canine friends, I decided that this is the dog for me. So my husband, Brian, and I went to the shelter immediately following the event to adopt Jonas, and good thing, because there were a number of people that were interested in him! He came home with us immediately.

Currently we're refining our feeding and walking routine. Jonas is bit underweight (although that shouldn't be a problem, as we seem to have some extra pounds we could pawn off on him), and we've been advised to add canned food to the dry for the time being.

Jonas has no problem sleeping in a crate at night. And we've already made a number of trips in the car to PetSmart, dog parks, and even back to the shelter to play with Noah (a canine friend). Jonas seems to enjoy all of it. Although it takes a little prodding to get him into the car, once he's there he is very well behaved.

Jonas is good natured; he is very curious, smart, food-motivated, just LOOOOOVES everybody. He is the sweetest guy. Without formal training, Jonas has already learned to lay down, sit and beg (by request only, of course), and we're currently learning to roll over. We've signed up for obedience training, mainly so that we (the humans) learn how to best get him to do what he seemingly wants to do all the time: please us.

Attached is a picture of Jonas demonstrating that he can sit.

Submit your own Happy Tail story and pictures.