Part 2: What Happened When We Picked Up Gibbs

Driving back to Charleston from Kenly, NC, with our 39 pound, 11 year old corgi mix at my feet in the passenger seat, to keep him away from the big, yellow lab, was a small feat in itself. I wasn't ready to take the risk to see how they would get along just yet, especially in the car. So, we drove the remaining 4 hours back to Charleston that way, with Marley eventually finding a comfortable way to lay under my feet, and the big dog mostly sleeping in the backseat, with the occasional look over the flat screen TV box we were toting back as part of our Christmas gifts.

When we got home, we coaxed who we were now starting to call 'Gibbs', up the stairs. He lifted his leg only once, because mostly we were watching him like hawks, to see what he would do. He settled down for a bit, and then we decided to try to give him a bath. Gibbs would not have it, and there was no way we could get a dog that big into the tub, so we gave up. We then tried to get him to go back DOWN the stairs, because he seemed like he needed to go for a walk. He was not having it whatsoever. He ran away, he'd lay down on all fours, and simply avoid us to get out of the way. Not even food worked to coax him down. After 10 or so minutes of trying, I told my husband he needed to carry him down the stairs. Carrying down what we learned was 107 pounds of yellow lab was quite the challenge, but he managed to pull it off.

The next day I called the local Kenly, NC, police station and SPCA. Gibbs mostly slept except when we took him to the vet to see if he was micro-chipped. He wasn't. We made the decision that if no one called us to claim him, we needed to take him to get a full examination on Wednesday, since we were unsure if he was sick or had problems, and we also needed to get back on the road to go down to Hilton Head to spend time with my family, so both dogs needed to be boarded for two days.

My cell phone rang on Wednesday morning just before 9am, and I knew from the area code that most likely it was the owners of Gibbs. I picked up and spoke to a man with a heavy southern accent, who said that he believed we had his dog, that the dog lives outside, but has a nice doghouse, and got off his lead from time to time.

His wife looked at my Facebook photos, and verified he was their dog 'Hoss'. I told them that we would be happy to meet them in Florence, South Carolina, which was halfway back to Kenly if they wanted us to. But the gentle man I spoke to asked me if I wanted Gibbs, and said they had 'lots of dogs', and that if we would give him a good home we could keep him. In fact, he said, he was looking for a home for Gibbs about six months ago and no one wanted him. I absolutely wanted him. In the course of a few days I'd already grown very attached to this big lug of a dog, and I had wanted to get another dog anyway, for Marley to have a buddy.

So we took both of the dogs straight to the vet. Gibbs to be checked out and both dogs to be boarded for two nights until we returned from Hilton Head.

According to the vet, they don't believe Gibbs had ever had a bath before. He was covered in fleas and when the vet bathed him blood and a ton of flea dirt washed away. He had also never likely been boarded, so they had to give him a mild sedative to calm him down. We returned today to pick both of the boys up from the vet, and Gibbs' fur was nice and clean, and he no longer smelled. $400 later he's good as new (he had parasites I won't mention here that they had to treat him for). Let's just hope that bill is only once a year.

All in all, I believe we made the right decision, and I am really glad we are keeping him. Although if you had told me a week ago we would soon have a 107 pound dog that we would pick up off the side of the road, I'm sure I would have just said 'yeah right'.

Now to make my list of New Year's resolutions...