PATIENTLY Waiting – obsessively
Afternoon,This is our next post of many to come. There is not much new information on our dog and when he’d be “ready,” but Katherine called the dog “Dakota” which is the name we wanted. It must be REAL! She thought the dog would be registered at the vets under the new name, which made us feel a little bit grounded with the waiting part. I think the waiting part might be the main subject today, but there is a little more information.Katherine talked to the rescue people and they said that Dakota is actually a Collie/Golden Retriever mix. We looked online and learned that there is a “hybrid” dog that is this combination Collie and Golden and they call the breed “Gollie.” Ok, we could go with that. Katherine added that it is a brindle color with white socks and chest and that his face looked more golden retriever. I had to ask what brindle was and she explained an orange and black swirl of color more often found in Great Danes and Pit Bulls.Being the people we are – we were back on the Internet faster than you could say Jack Spratt! We found a picture of Brindle on a Great Dane
The next thing we looked up was “Gollie” I will leave a link on the bottom of the post to “Dog Breed Plus – Gollie.” It gives an overview, life expectancy, appearance, weight and height, temperament, behavior with children and other pets, care and grooming, training, exercise, recognition and choosing names.We first read the initial paragraph where it stated, “Mix of Collie and Golden Retriever Called Gollie. They are extremely intelligent, alert, active, responsive and good with all family members. Their primary and outstanding trait is to be obedient, attentive and active. They are common and good for all climates. Their talent is Watchdog, Herding and group is Sporting/Herding type is hybrid. They are fun loving and dependable. Not only intelligent and loving they are tremendously good with children and all family members. Their build is a medium having weight 50 to 75 pounds and height up to 24 inches in standing position. Commonly they live a life of 12 to 16 years” (Dog Breed Plus, 2014).This was music to my ears and although I would go back later to read the article in total, we skipped back to the Google page with the name, “Gollie” and then clicked on images and we started assessing the dogs we were seeing. We studied the faces and body shapes trying to determine which attributes were similar in most of the dogs. We compared pictures where the dogs face was Collie or Golden, or a combination of both … for example the face could look primarily Golden Retriever, but the dog had the tip of his ear that bent down like a Collie or eyes that seem more almond and piercing. I then looked at body shapes and sizes trying to determine what 24-26” tall in a dog would look like and I started noticing differences in the way the fur behaved. I love the collie part when the chest is really fluffy as well as the tail. There was one picture where the dog/puppy looked a little orange and black, but the fur pattern probably was not brindle.
Oh for sure I could definitely love a dog with Orange and black fur PLUS there was going to be white in the “handsome, if not polite socks and chest (tux).Ok, about now is when the obsession feelings started really manifesting. We had a harder time controlling our ability to focus on anything else, which we hope is something the dog can help us with. We hope he can be trained at certain times to draw us away from over-focusing our time. It seemed that we’d lost our “safe image” of what a Collie should look like and here we had a “Gollie” and things were WAY different. We had no means to really steady our thoughts because there was just too much unknown information which sets us off. We’re hoping that Katherine is able to secure a picture soon. But, we understand the rescue people have other parts of their life other than their rescue work. She talked about maybe meeting the dog rescue people perhaps on Wednesday May 7th. That’s still five days away *sigh*Can you see why this could make you feel a little mentally out of control? We’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of pictures. We need to work more on our stress level the obsessive thinking causes and that was the work of therapy this week with Dr. Marvin. I had to consciously re-train my mind to let go of the parts where there are unknowns in information or time though he said we could focus on learning new things such as taking care of dogs or listening to other owners/trainers to see what held their interests. Literally, as “we” tend to go, we could still study the situation. It would help to do some Domestic Goddess stuff, quilting OR piano practicing too! I know I’m not going to know the next part until it happens and we have to be very patient, right? It’s on the hard side for us – distracted? Maybe he looks more like this 
The pictures said that this last particular Gollie is about 80 lbs. so that gives us a reference point as to size. This particular dog is stated to be about 5 years. Oh yeah … productivity … we wrote this post that counts, right?! A TINY bit more patiently we wait. We BELIEVE in you Katherine!ReferencesDog Breed Plus – Gollie, (2014.) Retrieved fromhttp://www.dogbreedplus.com/dog_breeds/gollie.php
Posted in By Ann, Working with Katherine at the Animal Psychology Center
