Rocko’s transition into being part of our family was a fairly uneventful process. We got home from Mema’s house on Sunday, Monday we had our first vet appointment.
It’s hard to imagine what he looked like at 35 pounds – a skeleton with fur. His back end was so thin it seemed like if you put your fingers on each side of his spine and pressed in they would touch. The picture here from Rocko’s Story was a couple weeks after he came home and he had started
to pick up some weight, but it gives you an idea of how bad it was. I wish we had more pictures from that time, unfortunately I gave the best ones to my former web developer who lost them.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, Rocko didn’t have any health problems other than being underweight. We made an appointment to have him neutered over Christmas vacation, he could be boarded at the same time.
At home, Big Kitty and Baby Kitty were pretty tolerant of their new family member. It helped that they had each other to gang up on him. He was docile and afraid of a lot of things so it didn’t take much for them to put him in his place. If we had a visitor he hid behind my legs the whole time. He was just a scared puppy.
We had a spare bedroom and that became Rocko’s room. He was shut in there at night to keep him out of trouble and to give the kitties free run of the house.
The only real problem we had was Rocko’s fear of tile floors. He had a tendency to slip and once that happened he wouldn’t try again. He’s still that way although now he will listen to reason, but back then he was stubborn. The back door leading to our fenced yard was through the kitchen so that presented a problem when he needed to go out. He would stay by my side as we went out the front door, around the side of the house and through the gate. When he wanted to come back inside, he’d bark at the back door and wait at the gate for me to come get him. I should have fixed the floor for him, nothing good comes of having your dog outside off leash, that was a hard lesson I learned shortly after and a topic for another post.
December quickly passed as Rocko continued to improve and gain weight. We went back to Mema’s house for Christmas weekend and Rocko stayed at the vet. His surgery went fine and he was happy to see us return.
In our next installment, you’ll learn how everything changed.