Moving on with Catching Up....

As many of you know, I have been missing my little companion after having to put Molly down in late fall.  It actually worked out well for me as I had knee surgery in early December and found it much easier to deal with all of that stuff without having to deal with a dog.

But I found there was such a much larger hole in my life.  It has been hard enough to have to face my life without Rudy.  But it made it a little easier to deal with that as long as I had a warm, furry friend to cuddle up and who needed me and was happy to see me when I got home.

So, I started looking at rescue web sites as I was still recovering from the surgery.  I had planned to go to Fancy Gap in the spring and then to Alaska in June and, while I could have taken a dog to Fancy Gap, I would have had to find some sort of way to get a dog cared for while I was in Alaska.  And besides, I had not found the perfect dog yet.  One of the problems with rescues, is that they can come from abusive homes or puppy mills and would need a great deal of special care and I preferred to not have a neurotic dog as I am neurotic enough on my own.

I decided, in my mind, that I wanted to have a really small dog this time.  So something like a Yorkie or a Pomeranian or a Maltese.  It also had to be a female and at least 5 or 6 years old.

A few weeks before my Alaska trip I came across this picture that was posted from a rescue group that were listed out of Pottstown which is not too far from here.

This is Winston.  Winston is a Schnoodle.... part Schnauzer and part poodle.  The write-up was adorable and the face... well who could resist that face.  But he weighed around 20 pounds (not my idea of small, was a male and was between 5 or 6.  (One out of three was not bad, right?)  I kept closing his page because he was in no way, shape or form the ideal dog I had in my mind.  But everyday, sometimes more than once, I would go back to his page.

While the posting I found was from Pottstown, Diamonds in the Ruff is a larger group of msaller rescues from several different places.  And Winston was not in Pottstown, Winston was not even in Pennsylvania.  Winston was in a foster home in Pikeville, KY.  So I finally broke down and emailed the contact information.  I got an email back asking for my number.  The next hing I knew I was talking to Winston's foster father, JJ Walker.

JJ filled me in on the story that he knew.  Winston had been owned by a family who were unable to care for him.  JJ actually thinks that Winston was owned by an older person and suspects that that person may have become ill or passed away and that family that took him in was not up to taking care of a dog and had turned the poor, neglected and matted dog into a shelter.  JJ had come in and taken him from the place and worked with him for three months, nursing him back to wellness from having kennel cough, getting him neutered and making sure he was groomed and up-to-date on all of his vaccines.  JJ told me all of the fun things that Winston had done and how social he was.  So I told him I was interested but needed to think.  Then I called JJ and told him about my trip to Alaska and asked if he would mind taking care of him until I got back and JJ said he would gladly do that, so I took a BIG chance, sent in the adoption fee and made plans to get back from Alaska, rest for a day or so and then drive to Pikeville to pick up a new member of my family.

JJ sent me a video of how Winston reacted when JJ told him he had been adopted.

Now who could resist that??

It was a great journey, so tune in tomorrow for the Winston Trip...!