Where do you live?: Boston, MA
Your dog is: purebred
Dog’s sex: boy
Dog’s name: Dookie
Dog’s Breed: German Shorthaired Pointer
Dog’s Birthday: 6/16/2004
Dog’s Siblings: He has 4, but we haven’t seen them in a while however they are all in New England
Favorite Food: Cheese and any fatty meat- like coldcuts
Favorite Toy: Hartz Rippled Squeaky Balls
Favorite Place to go: Everywhere, anywhere, especially with water!
Best Trick: Dookie can open a trashcan with using the footpedal, remove a donut shaped toy and then put the toy on a peg.
Best Friend: Hmmm…who to choose! Dookie has so many! I’d say Kerouac, our neighbor’s black lab. Ker’s like a pesky little brother to Dookie.
Wildcard: Dookie has a 1-eared Mickey Mouse head on one side of him! Thank goodness because otherwise Disney would own him!
Pet Peeve: When we leave unannounced. He hatessss that.
Tweet With Me: @suzannewong
Arrival Story: Tom and I looked to rescue a dog years ago but could only find pit and boxer mixes at the time. Because we weren’t interested in either breed we decided to look into purebreds and breeders. We selected the GSP breed because of their temperament, willingness to learn, high energy level, versatility and current genetic stability. As a first-time dog owner, trainability was key. Long-term, we deemed high energy dog would be better for us because we are very active and this would likely decrease our chances of having an overweight, unhealthy dog.
Anyway- all that aside. Getting Dookie was as if the gods had willed it. I contacted our local GSP breed association, spoke the the president of that association at length about having a GSP, especially in the city. She assured me it was possible- as long as we made the commitment. She also let us know about the next local dog show so we could meet many GSP’s along with their breeders to confirm we would actually want a dog. As luck would have it Mary Lou, Dookie’s Grandma, was there. She lived close to the location of the show and happened to have puppies. I’m not saying that we would have taken just any puppy or that Mary Lou would have given her puppies to just anyone but her grown dogs were wonderful and we are kinda hyperactive about things that concern us. Mary Lou’s concerns aligned with ours and it seemed like a very good match. Long story short, we did bring Dookie home two weeks later. He did cry for the first two nights because he missed his littermates, he did ha! ve very few accidents in the house but neither Dookie nor Tom and I have looked back without fondness.
Tom and I really got lucky in the dog lottery.
By the way, Dookie’s name was almost Cooter. Mary Lou was not impressed (we wonder to this day if she momentarily reconsidered letting us have Dookie)- but he would have made a fantastic Cooter.
Rescue Organization (if rescue): Dookie is not a rescue but we do work with German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue of New England
