We rescued our dog Jake from a family friend who couldn’t care for him anymore. He had multiple health problems; separation anxiety and bladder trouble. My son was 7 years old when we got him and he grew up with Jake as his constant buddy and companion. This past July, Jake developed more trouble with his urinary tract and ended up in kidney failure. My son now is 17, but he was crushed that the vets couldn’t do anything for Jake. We had to have him put down because he was suffering terribly. We love and miss him every day.

Lori from IL

Well, let me just say that in my opinion there is few nobeler a cause than adopting an “unwanted” pet. My dog’s name is “Kimber”(After the gun company)I adopted her 1 month before my mother died. if it was not for this loving sole with 4 legs I would not be here, I was never in my life more depressed. The sight of another living thing that depended on me for everything and asked nothing in return, but my company, and plenty of walks. In my mind if Jesus is siting to the right of god in heaventhen to the left of him is a happy, panting, tail wagging dog……DOG/GOD
Looking into the eye’s of these animals you see the lord.

Dan from AZ

Cleopatra was our beautiful basset hound. She came from a long line of Canadian and American champions, but my husband bought her as a rescue dog, that no one wanted. Cleo didn’t seem to live up to her aristocratic background – she was too full of fun to care about dog shows, and so her owners decided she was worthless to them. Well, we didn’t care about dog shows either, but we sure cared about Cleopatra. She loved us, and she loved our stray cat, Baby, who had been rescued from a litter of kittens of a cat who had been abandoned by summer tourists, and became wild. The two pets were inseparable, and loved to lay down together to snooze. Cleo didn’t even mind the occasional swat on the nose when Baby was feeling a little “playful.”
There isn’t space here to tell the wonderful stories about these two, but in the twelve years we were privileged to have them in our family, they totally entwined themselves around our hearts.
Cleo and Baby grew old together, with Cleo keeping her goofy sense of humour, and Baby keeping her sleek dignity.

In that 12th year, we noticed that Cleo had been losing her magnificent sense of smell, and that she was also going blind. One day when she was in the back yard, I heard her familiar hounddog howl, only this time it was n’t melodious – she was in pain. I found some boys with sharp sticks were poking at her through the fence, and had hurt her. The vet told us we wouldn’t have her long, that she had also developed deafness, and that she was obviously in pain. He said we really needed to put her to sleep. He had nursed her through a life-threatening disease years before, and we knew that he would not give us wrong advice.
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When my little sister Delilah was 4 years old, she received the love of her life. A beautiful black Lab puppie and she named him Pepper.

Pepper slept at the foot of her bed every night. He was her guardian. Even my Mom and my stepfather got a little growl if they tried to enter the room (friendly growl LOL!!).They didn’t mind because they knew Delilah was safe.

My grandmother lived 3 houses down and when Delilah left for school, she would tell Pepper “Go to Nana’s house”. Pepper knew exactly where to go (Took a pee on the way) and Nana would be waiting at the top of her stairs waiting for Pepper to run up. He liked going to Nana’s house because Nana spoiled him with treats (against my mother’s wishes), but that was their secret.

As Delilah got older, Pepper & Nana aged as well. When it was time to do his business, Nana would ask him to bring her “White shoes” from the closet and he would prance out of her bedroom with her white “walking shoes” in his mouth.He NEVER made a mistake. When the mailman came, she sent him downstairs and the mailman put the mail in his mouth, and when her paper was delivered, he’d race down to pick it up for her too.
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Shortly after 9/11 for some reason we determined to get a dog and my wife and I spend weekends going to various shelters. Some of them in LA are huge—and oh so sad places. All kinds of dogs, big and small, fat and thin, clean and dirty, nice and some not so nice. Each dear, “dumb” creature having their own story, each with a look of confusion or flirtation or accusation. Some older dogs with the sad sad look saying “where did my people go? Where are my people?”

The shelter in the San Fernando Valley had hundreds and hundreds. When we saw “him,” he was reaching his feet, which are huge, under the wire and laying back smiling at us. He had been there the week before also. They let us take him outside into a fenced “audition” area where they let people try out potential matches. He was so happy, so alert, he brought me the ball, and promptly rolled over and I found myself down on the ground in a major hug. He was dirty, stinky, and we adapted him then and there. Since he was a large dog, we were surprised to discover that we also got a small fee from the city—a rather remarkable gesture aimed at encouraging large dog adoption. Since it was a Saturday we would not be able to come back and get him until Tuesday—he would be shipped to the vet for a small operation on Monday…and a bath.
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When I was 8 my family got our first real family dog. A young border collie we would name Spritzy.

Spritzy would be a part of our family for nearly 11 years and was a very important part of our family. She was a smart, loving dog that treated me and my brothers and sister as her own. In fact if we were gone overnight for some reason, she’d spend her time lying in wait between our rooms waiting for the missing one to finally come home. We were her pups as it were.

Unfortunately as it happens, me and my sister graduated from high school and went to college. This meant that Spritzy would be separated from us for long periods of time. Whenever me and Steph came home my brothers would marvel at her change in disposition and when we left she would become depressed again.
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