Meet Daisy

Facts:

• Daisy is a girl and she’s now about 9 years old
• She is a Queensland Heeler, an australian cattle dog
• Daisy is the name she had in the shelter and we kept it
• She can sit, lie and stay on command

Kenny and I decided that I needed someone to keep me company while he was at work. Kenny had only had a dog when he was a young child, but I grew up around dogs.
Even though our apartment won’t allow dogs, several people here own them and the apartment manager doesn’t seem to mind as long as the neighbors don’t complain. So we set out
to look for a dog. Kenny liked small dogs and I liked large dogs.
We knew that the dog couldn’t be too big because we did live in an apartment. On
Saturday in late May of 2005 we set out in our search for the perfect dog.
We hit five of the six LA animal shelters and we saw many dogs, some too old, some too loud and some were perfect but weren’t available for a few days.
Finally at the last shelter and with 10 minutes left before they closed we found two dogs that were the perfect size.
They brought out the first one a German Shepherd Mix ( at least that’s what they told us, turns out later that she was in fact a Queensland Heeler) and she was scared and skittish but seemed friendly. They then brought out the second one, a Staffordshire (Pitbull) and this one was friendly but barked up a storm and was full of energy. 
Kenny pulled me aside and asked which one I liked better. We both agreed that the Pitbull was sweet and fun but had way to much energy to live in an apartment. And this Pitpull was loud, and since we were not allowed to have a dog we thought that would be a bad idea. So we decided to take the quiet and shy Queensland Heeler. We found out that she was abused and had been in the shelter for over a month and a half.
The employee told us that they were going to put her down the next day, so we got there just in time.
She has been quite a handful, she’s very frightened of people and doesn’t know how to deal with other dogs. It took Kenny and I about 10 hours for her to allow us to get close to her. It’s been a lot of work and we have our good days and our bad.
We’ve had her for about two and a half years so far and she loves both Kenny and I, but still isn’t sure about other people and other dogs. I figure it took years for whoever had her before to screw her up that badly and this way it will take years for us to show here that humans aren’t that bad and can actually be kind and fun.  We don’t regret taking her, she’s loving and loyal and in time will come to trust others.