Who is Birdie???

I got so busy as a foster mom posting about my foster dogs the last few weeks that I completely skipped over introducing you to Birdie on her "Gotcha Day" which is May 6th. Birdie happens to be the first rattie we adopted back in 2008. Before Birdie Girl, as we call her, we had always had larger dogs, all "pound puppies", as I was taught from a very young age (by my grammie and mom) that adopting a rescue dog was the ONLY way to go. So when our large dog Maya was getting older we decided to adopt again while she would be able to tolerate a new dog, and so we decided to downsize. We came across Birdie on Petfinder and adopted her from another rat terrier rescue group. In fact many of the volunteers of New Rattitude are originally from the rescue group we adopted Birdie from.

When we got Birdie we knew little about the breed, little about terriers, and so the journey began. Another thing we didn't know when we adopted Birdie (and neither did her foster parents) was that she is deaf. We had her about a week when Dave said to me, "I don't think Birdie can hear!". We did some tests, clapping behind her head, whistling, clicking our fingers, she didn't respond. AhHA so that is why she didn't bark at the doorbell or seem to respond to us talking to her or calling her name. We just thought she was a quiet dog by nature.

Our daughter, Jill, and now son-in-law, Miguel, had come over shortly after we figured this out and Miguel was intrigued. He stood looking at Birdie who was across the room and pointed to the floor in front of him. She ran over to him and sat down! Just like that. Birdie being deaf has never been an issue, she knows hand signals and how to sit, down, stay, roll over, come. She is just like any terrier and if she doesn't want to come instead of conveniently "not hearing" us, she conveniently doesn't "see" us waving our hands to get her attention. <grin>

Birdie is a total character and a wonderful dog. She is a comic and she rules the roost when it comes to foster dogs. And any of you who frequent my blog know, she also has a thing for unfixed males, and male foster dogs in general especially Mingus....

Here are a few choice pictures of our little Tweet Tweet Birdie

Birdie was under a year old when we adopted her, still a little thing...

Birdie has the funniest personality and keeps us laughing. Here she is pre-cleaning a large soup pan for us.

This was taken on a hot day in Umtanum Canyon, Birdie LOVES the heat.

This is Maya, she is the dog we had when we first got Birdie, she was great with her and let Birdie attack her all she wanted and Maya would just lay there in ecstasy, Maya was one of those dogs who tolerated most anything.

What a face!

Birdie might be deaf but she is very clued in to what is going on around her.

Birdie (and Skip) loves to run on the beach and she is a super fast runner.

She also loves to snuggle in her blankets and will sleep all day.

Birdie has been a wonderful companion and because of Birdie we adopted Jenny-Boo, rescued Skip, and adopted Sage! Not to mention started volunteering for New Rattitude. So better late than never on introducing Birdie officially on the blog and Happy Belated Gotcha Day Birdie!!!!!