Liberty, good dog

A couple of years ago, we adopted a dog from friends of ours who were moving. We had watched her a few times when they were out of town or whatever, and she was a really sweet dog. She likes to smile and show her teeth.

Her name is Liberty, and she's about 3-4 years old now. She's a mutt from the pound, and looks like she has Australian Shepard and something else - black fur with brown spots over the eyes and some light patches on her chest, under her hind legs & paws. She has a very soft double coat of fur. Her ears are floppy and her tail fans up in a curl. She has a very even temperament, and is mostly quiet and passive. She won't go into the carpet areas of the house, because she knows she's not allowed. She will patrol the kitchen at night, but will leave a plate with food alone (leftovers from a later snack for Connor).

She loves to run and is good at hopping on her hind legs. She can "shake" and sit well. She doesn't roll over though. Liberty is Diana's escort every day on her paper route. Diana thinks she's a wuss, because she hides her tail between her legs when another dog approaches, but both Lee & I think she'd get over that pretty quickly if she thought Diana was being threatened.

I had heard before that having a dog can be very benefical to kids with Autism. It's supposed to help them to feel loved, no matter how the world is treating them. Trevor & Connor both get along with Liberty very well (like most people) but the dog is really a girl's dog. Diana & I are definitely her favorites family members. If we're all in the yard, and calling to the dog - she will come to me over everyone else - Diana second. I think it's because I feed her most regularly :)

Lee is the Alpha Male at our house. Liberty will skulk away from Lee if he's coming her way. She will go out the dog door if it's open, just hearing his footsteps. She cowers a bit before him, even though he's never done anything to her. More likely, before she made it to the pound, she was abused by a man with light-colored hair. We have seen her act the same way toward blonde or red-haired men (not Trevor though - he wasn't old enough yet to be scary to her when she met him). In any case, Lee can never complain that the dog is in his way :)

Liberty is usually in the backyard all day, and then sleeps in the laundry room at night. She's a good watchdog and will bark to let us know someone is near our house. I like this. I sleep better at night with a dog on patrol. I used to wake up a lot at night and have to investigate odd noises. Now I don't bother, because if it were anything needing investigating, Liberty would bark (and she has). She's smart enough to know when the Sunday paper is delivered at 3:00 am that she doesn't need to worry about that. She'll only woof if the car is different or something. It's very nice.

I like the dog.