Our family adopted Chord, who we renamed Toby, this past October. He is a wonderful addition to our family. We have one child left at home and she had been wanting a dog for quite some time. My husband and I were hesitant to give in because we thought that we just didn't want the extra work and hassle. We gave in because our daughter is a really great and responsible child. She thought very carefully about the decision because she wanted to make sure she was ready to assist with the responsibility of having a dog.

We saw "Chord" on petfinders.com and thought he fit most of the criteria we were looking for in a dog. He is medium size with short hair and was about 9 months when we spotted him. We thought he was really cute in the pictures. We drove from Orlando to Ruskin, FL to take a look at him. While we were there getting to know him, our daughter decided that she would definitely like to take him home as our pet.

He has been a joy ever since. I work out of home, so I am with him most days and the family spends lots of time in the evenings and weekends playing with him, cuddling him and getting exercise with him. He is incredibly affectionate, playful and eager to please. He is very smart and very motivated to obey commands for treats. He is completely house broken and does not chew on anything he is not supposed to chew on! He does get a little crazy over cats and other animals he sees out the windows of our home and he really does not like to let us clip his toenails, but other than that he is quite well-behaved. We taught him to ring a bell to go outside and he already knew sit, shake, play dead, lay down when we got him. He is doing very well with stay, come and crawl!

I have been obsessed with trying to figure out what mix of breeds he is, but I am trying to accept the fact that I may never know. We think he could have some basenji in him and that has been confirmed by a few different basenji owners. People are always telling us what a "good looking" dog he is. He is currently about 13 months old. His favorite toy is his nylabone which he chews on for hours a day. He loves to play fetch with a tennis ball and he loves to be chased around the house. He loves to chew up stuffed toys which we do not let him do very often because he destroys them in a couple of minutes. He loves to go to the dog parks and chase and be chased by the other dogs. He runs faster than most of the other dogs and he leaps and flips over them while he is playing with them!

He really seems like he was meant to be a part of our family and we love him and get so much enjoyment out of him. The fun our family has with him is worth any extra work that comes along with having a dog!

Cheryl