My Favorite Thing: the joy of adopting a dog
What I most look forward to, at the end of each day, is the warm welcome I receive from my three dogs when I arrive home from work. I’m also happy to see my husband, Dave, but there is nothing like the enthusiastic greeting your dog gives you after even a brief time apart.
We were a one dog household when I went into animal welfare six years ago, with no intention to expand. We now have three, ranging in size from 13 to 110 pounds. We are pretty sure that the big one, Lucy, is an English Mastiff/Great Pyrenees mix, but only because the person who surrendered her said so. That’s good enough for us.
She was 9 years old when we got her and she is what I call a “fixer upper.” In about 18 months we have spent $2-3,000 to repair a hernia, remove a mammary tumor, clean and pull teeth, and to find out what was behind her intestinal problems. Dave now serves Lucy a home cooked meal three times a day and she is doing amazing.
Our 12 year old Sam, is anybody’s guess, but we have chosen to identify him as a Portuguese Podengo. I’ve always said that one of the best things about adopting a rescue is that you get to make up stories about who they are and where they came from.
Portuguese immigrants take their medium-sized Podengos out in small groups to hunt for rabbits. The story I came up with for Sam is that he got separated from his hunting party in Bakersfield, CA, which is where he was picked up as a stray and later pulled by a rescue from Sacramento.
Sam is a sweet dog who has lovingly mentored our foster puppies over the years as if they were his own little protégés. However, he has always been a little jealous of his sister, Tinker, who came to us nearly 5 years ago.
Tinker first entered our home under the guise of foster dog, but was so beguiling that I couldn’t part with her when the time came. She is my heart. A man brought her into the shelter shivering one cold fall morning. He said he found her in his front yard when he was leaving for work. This all too common story seems to be a strategy employed by many pet owners who find themselves with unplanned litters. They distribute these adorable little puppies hoping others will be in a position to perform and act of mercy on their behalf.
I describe Tinker as a 60 pound black Labrador retriever who, through some divine error, was born into the body of a 13 pound Chiweenie. A DNA test reported her as neither Chi nor Weenie, but rather a crazy mix of breeds, with only Manchester terrier seeming at all plausible.
Tinker loves water more than just about anything. I’m pretty certain she would swim until she sank from exhaustion so I always make her wear a life jacket when we’re around water. She loves a game of fetch and can catch a Frisbee with the best of them. A couple of years ago she won first place in tiny tot dock diving.
October is Adopt a Shelter Dog month. If you are up to the commitment of bringing a dog into your life, fall is a great time of year to begin the relationship of a lifetime.
by Bobbie Yeo