Rowan

From his Final Refuge mom:  It’s way past time to introduce our sweet new foster, Rowan. He is a 15 year old, Kerry Blue Terrier, ODH’s first. (The breed, definitely not the age.)

When Rowan was transported to us, we were told that during the 5 weeks he was boarded with at a local facility, he never played with people or other dogs, and apparently he must not have had an appetite because he lost 6 pounds during his time there. The wonderful transporter though she was delivering a very frail, old dog.

The Rowan that was carefully carried out of the car was not that dog at all!  From the moment Rowan burst into our lives, he has been full of energy, play, plenty of mischief, and joy. This boy is obsessed with fetch. After having 6 permanent foster dogs with no interest in toys, we had hoped for a dog that liked to play. Obsessed is a different category, though!  New rule: no balls or squeaky toys in the house so both Rowan and we can get some sleep. Maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but not much. He never gets tired of the games, especially in the house. We definitely did. And then there was the barking if we stopped the game.

Rowan is a very typical Kerry Blue Terrier in many ways. He is extremely high energy, very bright, intense, curious, an independent thinker, stubborn, loves children, and he really enjoys a good mole hole or squirrel chase. It seems like he may have felt he needed to be in charge of his former owner, who was not well, for at least the past few years, and is now learning slowly that he can relax and be a dog. They say that the Kerry Blue is not a dog for anyone not up for a challenge, but at 15 years old, we thought he was probably fairly mellow. Ha!

Rowan absolutely loves the company of other dogs, both the littles up to the big, high crazy energy or laid back. He can play ball parallel with other dogs and stays friendly. Not typical for the breed at all, they generally do not to get along well with others.

There definitely are some things we think we would like to work through with Rowan to make him a more relaxed, less intense dog, but he is also a ton of fun and we have fallen thoroughly in love with him. He is fairly deaf (hears loud noises and a good squeaker toy), and has vision limitations, both of which have added some additional challenges with a dog that is very assertive and mischievous.  We are hoping that even with his hearing and vision limitations, he will be able to take some  basic dog training classes with us. We think he’ll be a star!

Update:  Very suddenly Rowan began to have serious health issues (likely either a brain tumor or stroke) and his loving family had to say goodbye.  He was an amazing pup and had to leave us way too soon.  Rowan will always be in the hearts of his Final Refuge family – they feel blessed to have loved him and so grateful that he knew their love.