Riot

One day Greg and I were down building a playground in Coaldale. After work one day Greg, Brendan, and I stopped at the animal shelter just to see what was there. Greg and I both fell in love with a dog named Riot. He is half pit bull and half black lab. The problem was, he was already on reserve for another family. We asked them to put him on reserve for us just in case the other people changed their mind. (I know...it's weird putting a living creature on reserve). The next day Greg got a call at the playground saying the other people did pick him up. I was so sad.
When we were just slowing down on the playground build, Brendan said we had to hurry and pack up because he needed to be home by 6:30. Then on the way instead of passing by the shelter to drop Brendan off, Greg pulled in the shelter. Apparently the other people had returned Riot almost immediately because he didn't get along with their dog. We got a dog!
I was so excited! Greg and I took him on a walk by Brendan's house, and he was good except for barking at some little dogs. We didn't mind that because we hate little dogs anyways. At Greg's parent's house, we let him run off leash in the coulees. We played fetch with a water bottle and just had a lot of fun. We had to keep him in the back fence so that he wouldn't run away, but all of a sudden he was outside wagging his tail and roaming around. He had just soared over the fence no problem. Then we put him in the little back shed. It's just about 10*10 and made out of plywood. He was fine in there for the night. We took him for a walk and fed him in the morning, but the we got back from work, there was a hole in the bottom of the shed, and Riot was gone. We drove around town looking for him to no avail. A couple hours later, he showed up again! That night we went to Fort Macloud to eat supper with Greg's brother and family and to pick up a 6ft fence/kennel. Then we went back up to Calgary. We set the fence up with Riot on a leash then we all went inside. Riot was very well behaved. We designated one chair in the kitchen that he could sit on while we ate, and he sat there during each meal. We also had one chair in the living room that he could use. He would only go in it. He never peed or pooped in the house.
He was a great dog; however, we made the grave mistake of introducing him to the lady who lives in the basement of our house, Shawna. She didn't say anything to us about not liking him, rather she talked to our landlord and said she would not live in a house with a pit bull as a matter of safety. Our landlord came over and talked to us. He pet Riot and really liked him, but he couldn't get Shawna to agree to let him stay so he said we had to get rid of him. We were so ticked at the whole situation. All of Shawna's reasons seemed crazy to us. There was no way we were going to let Riot escape. We had him tied up AND in his fence anytime we weren't home and in the house when we were. There was no safety issue to be had. Plus, she said she never would've moved in if she would've known a pit bull would be living upstairs. Do you think we love her shitsus who bark for an hour strait every time she leaves the house?
Reluctantly we brought him back down to Lethbridge to return him next time we went down. He convinced us that maybe he wasn't perfect. He growled at Greg's dad and little sister. He also had a problem with Jackie (the dog Greg has always liked). He was fine with Teddy (the dog Greg hates). We found out about his problem with Jackie when suddenly Riot lunged from one side of the table, under it, and on top of Jackie in about a second. He might've killed Jackie had Greg not quickly pulled him off of her.
The next day, we brought him back to the shelter. I was on the verge of tears the whole time. I had really fallen fast for that dog. I know by all logical reasons, I should've been happy to get rid of him: he tied us down a little, he was apparently moody around people we cared about, he would cause strife with our neighbour, he would cost money, he would be extra work. All of that stuff seems super valid, but as I sit alone in our house, I really would love to have Riot here with me.

We think he was a beautiful dog, and he was super muscular.

 He might've been a little bit of a glorified lap dog too.

Crazy how you can miss a dog...especially when you only had him for 2 weeks.