Our last dog was a mixture of toy poodle and cocker spaniel, She lived to be 18 1/2 years. By the time we had her put down, she was blind, deaf and could barely walk. My wife said "no more dogs" because we became too attached to this one. She never wants to go through the heartbreak of losing another dog.
Three days later we dropped off a new unopened bag of dog food at a dog rescue facility. The lady said, "you should take a look at our dogs". We see this mutt who is super friendly, we said we will think about it. We were on our motorcycles, every time we stopped at a light my wife would say what do you think about the dog. We finished our ride and tried to call, but the place was closed. The next morning, I was at their door with a check in hand.
This guy's name is Rocket, named by the woman who rescued him. Almost an unbelievable story, she witnessed him being tossed out of a car at a gas station in a snowstorm. She said it took her nearly an hour to finally catch him because he kept running away. The woman who was a single mother and a Vet Tech couldn't keep him because she had three other dogs. We were told he was about one year old when we got him, that was almost seven years ago.
He was a real handful when we got him, it took a lot of training to get him under control. I can now say without hesitation he is the best dog I have ever had. Extremely well behaved and extremely affectionate.
IMG_8510 by
Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr
IMG_0794 by
Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr