O.k., first of all WordPress, give us some new prompts. This is yet another one that is exactly what was asked last year. These repeat prompts are getting more and more frequent. Last year I wrote about the unconditional love of a pet. And I believe I wrote about my cat, Faye, who is deeply devoted to me. The unconditional love is still the best part, but this year, I see that love in our rescue dogs.
We’ve had Millie for two years now and next month we’ll have had Ethan for one. Both of them were picked out of the county animal shelter. If I remember correctly, at the time I adopted Millie, she had been there the longest of any of the other dogs. I picked her because she was sitting so still and so quiet at the front of her kennel. The dog beside her was jumping and barking and losing his everloving mind to get my attention. But there was my girl, sitting calmly as I walked by.
There wasn’t much information about her history other than she had been a stray and was found wandering the road. Since bringing her home, we have learned that Millie has quite the teenager attitude. Barks in your face when she wants attention, will sit on the floor with her back to you when you call her name to come to you. She’ll even turn her head and look over her shoulder at you as you call her name. Then she’ll walk away. The sass is strong with her! But she also loves people and other dogs.
I will never forget bringing her home that day. It was just her and me for a few hours at home until my husband got home from work. She had spent the day sniffing around and learning her new environment. I didn’t know what to expect her reaction to be when my husband got home. I had picked her out myself from the shelter. But as soon as Josh walked through that front door, she ran to him, tail wagging, butt wiggling, just as excited and happy to see him as if she had known him her whole life.
We quickly learned that she’s like that with everybody. It’s why we have to sedate her to take her to the vet, she just gets too excited and loud when she’s there. That’s also the reason we got Ethan. Millie so badly wanted a friend to play with. So, on December 13th of last year, when the shelter was having an event where the fee to adopt a big dog was waived, I went and picked out Ethan. We decided that we needed the new dog to be a male to eliminate any aggression between two females. And we also needed the new dog to have a calm demeanor. Millie had such amped up energy that we needed a calm boy to balance her out and maybe calm her down some too. Ethan was that dog.
We kept his shelter name even though it is a decidedly human name because he embodies that name. I think of the name “Ethan” and I think of the cool new kid at school. He’s got that popped up collar and aloofness and all the girls swoon over him when he walks by. He’s instantly popular simply by being himself. And oh how Millie fangirled over Ethan just by having him in her house. Ethan is a quiet boy. He lets Millie do the barking, except when our cat Nugget hisses at him through the baby gate and gets him riled up.
But here’s the thing about Ethan, we don’t know what his past life was like either, but every day he acts grateful to be in our home. We know he was also found wandering a busy street. He has a chunk of his tongue missing that makes us wonder what happned to him. We have deduced that he might have been dumped by his previous family. Which is heartbreaking but good for him because he found us instead. He snuggles us with a fierceness that makes us think he is begging us not to dump him too.
And that’s what’s good about these rescue pets. It has filled our hearts to love them. It has given us a purpose. We spoil these dogs every day. Because they deserve it. We’ve gotten them medical care…Millie has skin allergies that she has to take medicine for so she’s not scratching all the time. And Ethan recently got put on Prozac because he’s got some anxiety, probably thanks to Millie barking in his face when she wants to play. We know he doesn’t like that because he climbs on us when she starts in on him.
But we take care of them as much as we can. We hold Millie in our laps when it’s thundering or when the military base down the road practices artillery and the booms get loud. She gets very nervous and trembles pretty hard during that. That’s when her teenage attitude disappears and she just wants to be comforted. Which we do. Because these pups had a hard life before we got them and now they have a forever home with us. They’re happy to be here and we’re happy to have them.
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