Happy Endings for CARE pets!

How many times can you tell someone thank you? Thank you for making our days brighter and fuller. Thank you for helping us heal. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to enjoy late night zoomies, constant kisses, a BFF for Rose, be entertained by hoarding, and making our family whole again. CARE has gone above and beyond to give Juniper (aka Bunny) a chance to live her best life (and us too). From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

My daughter and I had wanted a little chihuahua mix for years. At just the right moment, we found our new best friend and family member through the CARE website. We adopted Cricket, a 2 year old chihuahua terrier mix who had just had 6 puppies a few months prior, at the beginning of September. Laura, The Best Foster Mom Ever, made the process easy with all of the wisdom and resources she shared with us. Cricket has already provided us with so much joy and love! She has been brilliant with our two cats, also adopted from CARE, as she blatantly ignores them and gives them plenty of space to approach her and explore their new roommate on their own terms. Cricket is our constant, loving companion now. We could not be happier! Thank you, Laura and all of the amazing CARE volunteers!

I adopted Baby Grace 2 years ago after my husband died. We had a cat named Milo who was my husband’s cat and was very lonely and depressed as I worked outside of the home and he was now alone much of the time. Baby Grace was slow to come around to me at first but was an instant friend to Milo. They would play and run around the house at night while I was in bed. She would hide under the bed when I was home. It took some time for her to trust and warm up to me but Milo’s depression lifted and I can now say we are a threesome. I renamed her Macey Gray and love her to death. She is a mischief maker and gives Milo new ideas every day on what they can get in to or on. You never know what she is up to. She is the smaller cat in the pic ( Milo is huge)

We now have our second CARE dog. Our first is five(ish) year-old Audie, a low-riding Chatham County seriously mixed breed who is pretty much always happy; the second is a miniature blue (and brown) tick hound of some sort, who has the demeanor of a puppy despite two veterinarians saying she is probably 2 years old. She has brightened up our household in this troublesome time of the virus, and it is probably a good thing that she keeps us on our toes.

In 2012 we were heart-broken when our 15 year-old Beagle Dachshund went to Dog Heaven. PeeWee our terrier really wanted a sibling and interviewed many dogs at various rescues until he met lucky #13, Miss Molly from CARE. They became instant BFFs. PeeWee is now 20 and has been slowing down lately. In anticipation of wanting Molly to never be alone, we turned to CARE again to find another dog for our pack. Daisy (formerly Maggie) with all her puppy energy (even though she’s 2 or 3) and sweet disposition has been the perfect addition to our family. She has given PeeWee renewed energy and purpose. They walk on a splitter leash miles through the neighborhood each week. Molly has claimed Daisy as her furever sister. The joy these 3 rescue dogs bring each other and our household is immeasurable.

We we’re luckily accepted to become Theodore family and we are grateful for Robin at the time Theodore Forster mom to come to our home and bless us with letting us become Theo official parents. Theo is such a smart boy, funny, quiet, loves to sleep and very protective of us which is great. He loves to sleep on me and cuddle, play and boy does he love to be loved. We promise to love him each day and give him the best home and life every pet deserves. Thank you to all we are very fortunate ❤️

We met Simon at a CARE adoption event back in February. We had actually intended to meet one of Simon’s brothers we had seen on the website, but the moment we saw Simon, we knew he was our boy! He’s incredibly smart (and a little bit sneaky and stubborn on occasion). He sits, stays, and shakes hands already, and he loves to take naps with all of us. Everyone who meets him says how beautiful he is. We are so happy to have him in our family, and we are so grateful to his foster parents, Robin and Bill, for taking such great care of him while we waited for the adoption date!

Richard and I were planning on searching for a companion for our big female, River, AFTER our house renovation was done. But then we saw a picture and read the story of the two foster brothers, Lenny and Squiggy (now Pippin). Laura set up a Meet and Greet and we fell in love with little Squiggy. He’s now a part of our family and growing like a weed! If you can see his photo, maybe we should have called him Face instead of Pippin. Thank you Laura and CARE for giving him a great start in life.

Our journey to having a puppy is a long one. We had wanted a dog for years but the timing & our lifestyle was never quite right. We were looking into it late last year when we found out that our beloved kitty was very sick. We put all plans on hold in order to devote all of our love and care to him during his final weeks & months.

A month or so after his passing, we began looking on Petfinder as a kind of “therapy” and “research”. It was there that we first saw Lenny’s photo. Of all the beautiful and cute dogs we saw, his photo made us laugh out loud. He was so precious and funny. We were still just in the research phase though and weren’t planning on adopting just yet. Well, that changed 🙂

A few weeks later, we went to Phydeaux to pick up some kitty food. Within moments of us walking in my husband saw Lenny and recognized him from the photo. We went over and his handler, Amanda, spent so much time with us and we fell in love with Lenny then and there.

From there, the process got even more amazing. His foster mom, Laura, man, we could write pages on our gratitude for her. She gave us so much faith in the adoption process. She is such an advocate for the animals she fosters and because of that, she is an amazing support to the humans adopting. One of the best feelings was knowing that even if we weren’t chosen to be Lenny’s family, we would be able to move past our disappointment because we’d know that there was a better family for Lenny out there and a better fit for us. We trust her judgment completely and we are soooo grateful for it. The training and socializing and effort that Laura puts into her pups is just so wonderful and Lenny is a perfect example of what all that love can do. I know we’re partial but he is the sweetest, most lovable pup. He is completely irresistible!

We are first time dog owners and so all of us are learning together each day. There are challenges and adjustments, but it really is a wonderful process. 🙂 It will be one month on Saturday that he’s been with us and we love him more everyday; which I didn’t think was possible! He’s brought so much joy and love into our home. In the midst of all this chaos in the world and in our lives, we never go a day without smiling or laughing because we have him.

Note:
It’s really hard to pick just one photo of Lenny. I’m going with this sweet moment I got between Len & my hubs cause it makes me smile every time I see it.<3 I do have plenty of Lenny alone if that’s better! 🙂

I was looking for a lap dog for company. I found just that! Lucy and I couldn’t be any happier!