Come and see this remarkable video of Bud going out into the pasture Sunday afternoon, past the donkeys, out to the sheep, running with Fate and sitting with Red. I would not have believed this possible for the first 24 hours.

I am forever in awe of the ability of dogs to acclimate to change. People tell me all the time how their dogs grieve and mourn, but the most wonderful thing about dogs to me is their infinite capacity to move on, change and learn.

I think of the Katrina dogs, they didn’t mope around grieving for home, they moved forward with their lives. I don’t know of one who perished in grief for being separated from their homes.

That is their genius, the thing squirrels and raccoons can’t do.

They know how to move on, much as we don’t want to hear it.

This is inspiring to me, the reason dogs, alone among very few animal species, are thriving among destructive, greedy and neurotic humans. I don’t love them because they are like us, but because they are not.

They do what they need to do to survive.

Bud  has been with us for about 24 hours. In his previous life, he was locked up in a metal cage outdoors without shelter or a roof or any kind of heating or shade. His only companion, a Pug, died of heatstroke.

Bud was covered with sores from bites, and emaciated, he was suffering from heartworm, exposure and dehydration. He shows every sign of being handled roughly, he is timid at first, then his self emerges. My job is to bring out the true self. It is starting to emerge.

That was the only home Bud ever knew until Carol Johnson and the Friends Of Homeless Animals went and bought him from his inhumane human to Carol’s home, a foster home for dogs who are in great trouble and homeless.

He spent six months in Carol’s very loving home recovering his health, he lived with five or six other dogs in need of a permanent place to live.

He was well cared for, but as rescue people know,  foster life is not the same as a  regular life.

I saw But three months ago on the FOHA website, and  rushed to adopt him right away. He just seemed to be my dog.

It took this long to get him well.

I was expecting weeks, even months of careful rehabilitation and adjustment for Gus, but he seems to have come  home, and he seems to know it.

Today, he spent hours outside running around the back yard, taunting Fate, snuggling with Red. I decided it was time for him to go out to the pasture with Red and Fate and run around a bit, cut loose and  have some fun.

Bud is a very serious dog, time for some fun, I thought. And he had a blast out there. This is Bud’s first close encounter with sheep. Come and see how much fun he is having here..