When I had to put my beautiful dog, Stormy, to sleep almost three years ago, I was heart-broken and crashed and burned into depression. I’ve lost kitties before, which was always awful, but Stormy was my first dog as an adult and she was very, very special.

Two and a half years later, I finally said, “OK, I’m going to a shelter and see if they have a nice dog, and if they don’t, I’m going to adopt another kittie,” as there was a lovely fluffy kitty shown on their website who struck my fancy.

So I went walking around all of the cages at this shelter looking at all the dogs and finally made it around to the back where a cage held two lovely dogs. One, mostly hound-ish, had border collie coloring and was bouncing off the walls and barking his head off. He was extremely cute. His roommate was quiet and just had a look on her face that said, Please, please, get me away from this dork.” I took both of them out on the patio and finally put the handsome looks of the hound aside and opted for the quieter one. I named her Sophie because they said she was part Australian Shepherd so I figured she would be smart. My best guess is that her other part is Catahoula. She is absolutely the sweetest dog since my beloved Stormy. She loves every one and every dog. She gets along with my orange cat (the big orange lump on the left side of the picture) and she’s terrified of my brown tabby, which is perfect. We go to the dog park almost every day where she has made some good friends and she has filled a hole in my life. I still can’t believe I went to a shelter filled with random stray dogs and picked the very best one. How lucky am I!

— Carol from Seattle, WA