The Almighty Thor!
In the legend of "Thor," the God of Thunder was cast down from the heavens to live amongst the humans. Our running buddy may not have all the characteristics of the young and arrogant character portrayed in the stories, but we do think our friend here is heavenly, and certainly almighty and powerful! Read more about Thor below, and visit www.acctphilly.org/adopt to get information on taking him home!
Thor is about 3 years old and has been waiting at ACCT Philly for an adoptive family since the very beginning of November. Thor thrives on activity and is a mighty and powerful little guy, although he weighs in at just 45lbs! He is strong and starts out like a clap of thunder, but then he calms down after just a few moments on the leash and is more of a low rumble. Okay, we are pushing the thunder analogy, but it is kind of fun. What we are trying to say is that initially Thor is just excited to be outside with human companions doing what he loves, but once he realizes you are going to hang with him a for a bit he settles in to enjoy the time with you. For instance, when we take Thor out for a run, he will tug a bit on the leash for the first few moments, but by the half mile marker he has settled into a loose leash at a comfy 10/10:30 minute mile pace.
Running is not just fun for Thor. It's also therapeutic. Thor has spent significant time in the shelter at this point, and life inside ain't easy. It's loud, scary, and confusing. Thor is also struggling a bit because we believe he is house trained and doesn't want to soil his kennel, adding a different layer of mental stress to his full plate. Taking Thor out for runs calms his anxious nerves. Runners have said that you can almost see the stress melting away from him.
Volunteer runners have called him "easy" and "delightful" to run with. He checks in often with his human running partner, looking up and making sure his pace matches theirs. How darling is that! We think that this shows his "people pleasing" side, and would love to learn more about how he makes his future humans happy, because we could totally see him being a little show off!
Those who have run with him know he could do a 5K right now no problem, and would probably go up to a 10K if his human wanted to, but all agree that for him it's more about the consistency of running (multiple times a week) vs the length of runs (remember, we are hoping to melt his stress away daily!).
Thor has had positive interactions with other dogs and knows a few basic commands, but is slipping up on his manners a bit these days due to the level of stress he is facing. Knowing Thor and watching him over the past month in the shelter, we do believe he just needs to decompress, stick to a regular exercise pattern and routine, and have more consistency in his life so that he can get back to the house trained and well mannered pup we know. How do we accomplish that? Get him adopted and into a home of course!
