Just last week, Mitch, a terrier mix at the San Martin Animal
Shelter, didn’t know his name and called a small kennel he shared
with other dogs his home.
Gilroy – Just last week, Mitch, a terrier mix at the San Martin Animal Shelter, didn’t know his name and called a small kennel he shared with other dogs his home. But now that he’s been adopted by a family with an affinity for rat terriers, he’s got a name that will stick and an acre of land on which to roam.
Though Cheryl and Bill Pritchett look at the Friends of the San Martin Animal Shelter Web site from time to time for rat terriers, they weren’t actively looking for another dog. But when they read about Mitch’s plight in the Dispatch last week, they knew their household could find room for one more of the feisty, little dogs.
“We didn’t want another dog, but we couldn’t believe that no one would take him,” Cheryl said. “We just are suckers for a rat terrier.”
Bill went down to the San Martin shelter Thursday afternoon and played with Mitch in the dog yard.
“I spent half an hour with him, then got the other two dogs and let them off the leashes,” Bill said.
“They both jumped up in my lap,” he said of Mitch and one of his dogs.
Bill knew Mitch would fit right in at the Pritchett home and he signed the adoption papers so his wife could pick up the dog the next day.
The six-year-old terrier has been dubbed Grandpa Mitch, but the couple is calling him Gramps for short. Though he is the newest addition to the Pritchett family, which is made up of two people and four dogs, three horses and some chickens, he is the oldest of the dogs. The white fur where his eyebrows would be if he were human even makes him look like an old Grandpa.
The couple is familiar with the rat terrier breed because they adopted their first rat terrier, Aunt Pearl, from a breeder five years ago. When they moved to Gilroy two and a half years ago, they adopted their second rat terrier from the San Martin Animal Shelter and named him Uncle Frank.
“Frank was subdued in the shelter, but they are total terriers now,” Cheryl said. “They bounce off the walls.”
He might be the oldest, but Gramps acts like a puppy when he is inside the house. He picked up Frank’s stuffed monkey and tossed it in the air, chasing it.
“He’s taken over the toys,” Cheryl said.
Gramps actions are typical of rat terriers which are goofy, playful dogs, according to Cheryl. She said they can vary in shape and size, with Gramps being much larger and taller than Pearl and Frank. But she said he is on the skinny side so she has plans to fatten him up.
While running outside with the other dogs, including a large dog named Amy that the Pritchett’s rescued from another shelter, Gramps stayed close to Cheryl and Bill. With so much space to run, the couple said it is just a matter of time before he gets comfortable with it.
The other two terriers run racetracks around the backyard and tease the slower Amy when she tries to catch them, and Frank tries his best to pull Gramps into the game. Cheryl and Bill plan to keep Gramps inside the house when they are gone and supervise his time outside for at least a month, until he is used to his new environment.
“We are watching him really closely,” Cheryl said. “Until he feels he is part of the family.”
For information on other cats and dogs looking for homes, visit www.fosmas.org or call theshelter at 683-4186.
