Pet of the Week - Riley!

Name: Riley LittleMan Mummit Poodle Pie Dvorak
Age: app. 3 yrs old....but he's a very old soul
Breed: Most likely a Petite Basset Griffon Vendeen or AKA PBGV

My Littleman came to us through my son-in-law, when his boss's mom, who was Riley's mom, became very ill and passed away. We had recently lost our wonderful, funny handsome Golden Retriever, Hans Frans, to cancer and our Lab, Essie, was so lonely without her lifelong companion.

So Riley's picture was emailed to me and I instantly fell in love with him. At the time he was living in Yucaipa in So Cal and we were living in Livermore, in the East Bay of San Francisco. After many emails and phone calls back and forth, we agreed to meet the family caring for him half-way in between, and we drove to Buttonwillow, a stop I'm sure any of you who regularly drive Interstate 5 will recognize.

Our first sighting of Riley was him being walked across the parking lot of the truck stop, and he was happily bark bark bark bark bark barking all the way across. We thought, oh crap what have we gotten ourselves into?????, but he was so adorable and had the most beautiful brown eyes I knew we could work with him on the barking.

The barking turned out to be the least of the problems. It seems this sweet boy had not been housebroken and thought it was perfectly OK to squat and pee and worse wherever and whenever the need arose! He also felt free to jump up on the table and stand there like a mountain goat helping himself to whatever was on the table.

Well, long story short....we have overcome all of the problems, but he still will do almost ANYTHING for a bit of food. But he's a VERY smart boy and caught on to what he was doing wrong very quickly because above all else he's a pleaser. He now shakes, does an adorable "down" and rolls over on command. He also takes the cleaning of the cat's ears VERY seriously and deems it necessary to do several times a day! The cat actually has come to like it!

Riley makes me happy just looking at him, and most everyone who meets him feels the same way. He's such an unusual looking dog that we never go anywhere that someone doesn't ask me what kind of dog he is, usually followed by the comment that he should "be in movies"! My little diva...What a cutie ...he has blessed my life with happiness and laughs since day one!

Thanks so much Pam (aka Mom) for sharing Riley with us! He really is a cutie!