my dog

My dog came to live with us about six years ago. We rescued him from the Santa Cruz SPCA and he was on his third strike. That means two families had already adopted him and returned him, and if we had returned him he would have been put to sleep.


He is an energetic Airdale mix. The first family to adopt him had two small toddlers at home, and found his energy was just not a good match for their little fragile family. The second guy took him home, then went to work the next day and left him locked in his apartment. You know the rest of the story. (um, duh.)


I fell in love with this dog instantly. ND and I are fairly frequent visitors to the SPCA, and ND will always find a dog (or three) that he is willing to bring home. I am more skeptical. However, this fuzzy faced boy dog just stole my heart. On our second visit, I even cried when I saw the handler shoving him back into the crate as we left. When we finally claimed him as our own, the woman at the desk repeatedly asked us: "Now you know about his problems. You do know about his PROBLEMS." But we knew, once he was really home, his true home on 20 acres in the forest, he wouldn't have any "problems". And we were right.


Until about a year ago, when he started to develop strange symptoms: arthritic movement, lethargy, depression. Turns out he had Lyme disease. Now he's been on medication for a month, and I am thrilled to report that Whoopie is back to his wacky, obsessive, crazy, fuzzy, lovable self.

Here he is, climbing the ivy over the carport to catch a rat. Welcome back, friend.