Rescued Dogs

A few years ago, my mother was talking about getting a dog. She dithered for quite a while. We didn't think she would ever actually do it. Sometimes, she mentioned shopping through the dog adds in the newspaper and we all discouraged her.

Then, one day, a "Rocky" was mentioned in her email. "Rocky" was at the SPCA, hairy, stinky, droopy and virtually unrecognizable as a little scottie dog. She saw something and Rocky, though, and so he came to live with her.

That little dog went through a miraculous change. She washed him, clipped him, walked him, and loved him. His name became "Monk" after one of her favorite TV characters. The ears and tail stood up again and now Monk marches along on daily walks with her through her neighborhood like a little general, all attention and pure scottie.

He's such a happy little dog, now. We often see that little happy "skip" in his step that is characteristic of Scottish Terriers.

Zeph is a great dog. He's beautiful, friendly, athletic, happy. I really lucked out.

My family had dogs when I was growing up, but I had never really bonded with them. As I grew up and moved out on my own, I decided one year that for my birthday, I was going to get myself a dog, because the cats just wanted me to sit in a chair and provide a warm place for them to snooze.

I walked into the pound, and he was the first dog I saw. I looked at all the others, but he was the only one that looked at all Aussie, and I had thought an Aussie would be a good type of dog for me. The poeple at the pound tried to warn me away from him. He was big, unnuetered, hyper, with little or no training. Originally picked up as a stray, he had been adopted out, but returned as too wild. But my heart was set, and I took that wild thing home.

He ran away in the five minutes it took me to go to the store for dog food, dog dish, and a collar. I found him quickly, though. He's failed four obedience classes and will always be a wild, "obedience is optional" kind of dog. He's a lot of fun! At nearly eight years old, he competes in flyball and trains in agility and is always up for a game of fetch.

Seelie is my sweetie. A gentle, sweet, but very driven dog. She'll do anything for you. Well, not for YOU (she's a little leery of strangers) but for me she would.

I had been contemplating actually purchasing a dog from a breeder. I had put a deposit down and done my research. But, then, a little female border collie puppy showed up at the city's Eastside shelter. I couldn't get there before they closed, so I adopted her, sight unseen. They kept her to spay her and sent her home with me the next day.

That poor little thing was all ears and hair. For a puppy, she was very solemn. She was completely overwhelmed, and so was I, but we made it.

She is a dream to train. In flyball, she learned the box turn, she learned the jumps, no undue fear of box noises or desire to herd the dog in the other lane. She's picking up agility nicely. In the house, she passed that destructive puppy stage and quickly learned when to be calm and when to be wild, just a sweet, sweet dog.

She is a bit of a mutant, though, with tipped ears and a ridge of long hair along her backbone that always sticks straight up.