Rebecca Ore: Kit

This is Kit, a Border Terrier who is now 12 years old, a rescue c/o Border Terrier Welfare. His previous people thought he was a lap dog.

Story 1

Kit's first owners told Border Terrier welfare that Kit was an aggressive dog with Crohn's Disease. They wanted me to come to Manhattan and pick him up from Doggie Day Care. I said that if he could understand what was happening, they owed it to him to turn him over to me in person, not have him think he'd been kidnapped and smuggled out of NYC to Philadelphia. Besides, I didn't have a car and hauling a 20 lb. dog in a carrier on public transportation would be tedious. They said that they could bring him in when they came to see the Thomas Eakins exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They called him Brutus, but Border Terrier Welfare said to rename him.

Like all good Border Terriers, Kit ignored me as they brought in two crates, two Sherpa bags, and a box or two of dog toys and clothes. The woman who was his owner started crying even though he'd growled at their baby. They finally left and I took the dog out to the back yard and called him Kit. We then went for a very long walk and he didn't appear to have missed the owners at all after that (they'd told me he didn't need long walks).

We got another box of toys and clothes in the mail, which I either threw out or gave to a Jack Russell friend of Kit's.

Story 2

Kit decides where we're going for the first half of the morning walk, but sometimes I get tired and want to go toward home rather than not. He would rather not. A couple of days ago, I let him turn left on Olley Lane and we ended up at one of the parks where I decided that we needed to turn left again and walk through the park to the Guinea Road trail crossing. He realized when we got to Guinea Road that we could be headed home now and decided that we needed to take a right and wander around through the next suburban development. About 2 hours after we started, we ended up at home.

This is a dog who supposedly didn't like to take long walks when he was 3 years old, but who pulls stuff like this when he's 12.

Story 3

Kit decided that my yellow chair was the best place to sleep at night; I didn't want him on it because he got it dirty. He decided the rule couldn't possibly be that he couldn't sleep in the yellow chair, but perhaps the rule was that if I told him to get out of it, he had to. Then after a while, he decided that the rule was that he had to get out of it if he heard me coming. A friend came by for a visit and took a nap on my couch while Kit took a nap in the yellow chair. I didn't see this, but heard about it from the friend. After this, I put a large pillow in the chair, trying to block Kit from sleeping in it. Kit schooched the cushion against the back and curled up on the space that was left.