Gertrude Steinbeck

ATB July 11, 2011

I got a phone call from BBR’s foster home coordinator saying something to the effect of there being a wonderful girl that needed a place to stay for a week or so until another foster home was available for her. Being the sucker that I am, I talked Alex into letting us foster her for the week. So that weekend we were meeting Lisa R in Hinckley to pick her up. At the time her name was Missy, which we felt didn’t fit her at all. When she walked in the door Alex said “She looks like a Gerdie” and she looked up and ran over to him. So her name from that point on was Gertrude (Gerdie for short).

Gerdie ended up fitting into our pack like she had always been here, so we told Lisa R that we would just keep fostering her until she found the perfect forever home. We had a few families interested in her but they both had young children and Gerdie was not a fan of people touching her butt or ears at the time (she had the most horrible ear infections). After talking to the second family I realized that I didn’t want her to go. She was my “girl” and I didn’t want her to leave. So we foster failed and officially made Gerdie a Jokela hound.

Gerdie’s nickname is Gross Gerdie as she is the most slobbery, goobery girl you have met. She requires baths, her ears cleaned and her teeth cleaned very often to be presentable to others. I have really only been super grossed out once by her. I was eating breakfast at the diningroom table when she shook and a huge drool string flew and landed on my face!

She is known in our house as the referee, as she likes to follow all the action and just bark. She has to be part of anything going on in the house! She also has to be touching one of us, either directly or indirectly, at all times. She will let me do just about anything to her without too much grumbling (we call it giving you the tooth as she had to have some pulled and doesn’t have a lot) but if Alex even tries to wipe off her mouth she will grumble.

I remember going down to the cities to visit my family one weekend and getting a call from Alex saying that Gerdie wasn’t acting like herself and that he thought something must be wrong. I told him that if it got any worse to go to the ER vet but to just watch her for now. I came home the next day and as I walked into the gate she ran full speed toward me and almost knocked me over…turns out she just missed me!

Gerdie loves to travel and can go anywhere with us. This past August we decided to buy a travel trailer and take that to North Carolina for Alex’s bee conference. She rode like a champ the whole way and loved the travel trailer. We hope to be able to take her many more places with us!

Sadly this is one of our last pics of Gerdie as she passed away on July 11, 2011 after she bloated once again.  Run free sweet girl!!!!