Benjamin

Benjamin is our family dog. In the summer of 2012, I had very young children, a 1.5 year old boy and 3.5 year old girl. For some reason I felt called to foster at the local SPCA. We brought home a husky named Trigger. Trigger was a master escape artist and started getting territorial over the food bowl with my senior Rhodesian Ridgeback. When I took him to the dog park he would protect her and get in fights with other dogs. With two young children to look after, I felt it was too much for me to handle. We brought him back and they asked if we could take Benjamin. "Who's Benjamin" I asked.

Benjamin, at the time, was a one year old Coon hound/Shepherd Cross (so they think). We looked at him through the window and we saw a very sad looking furry hound dog with and extremely long nose. We entered his room and he vigorously started wagging his tail. "Sure, we can foster him." I said.

We took him home and fell in love with him. Life was so happy and fun with him around. He absolutely loves children, swimming and playing fetch. He is by no means perfect. He has been a lot of work over the years. He is very territorial and barks a lot to ward off people or dogs that come too close to the fence. He also bays with the horn of the train at 5 am. Now that he is five years old he is starting to settle down a little, little bit.

When we take Ben to our weekly summer outings to the beach, he is very excited to swim and fetch. So here is are two video clips of Ben doing whatever it takes to get a stick, even if it is two feet under water.

---