10 Reasons We Love Our Rescue Dog

A couple of years ago, we adopted a shelter dog. Here is his story.

My husband wanted a border collie so we went to Petfinder.com collie section and found Shasta. The ad said that he needed a foster family fast or he would soon go to canine heaven.

The description also said he was a “smart, lovable teddy bear” and the photo showed his adorable big puppy dog face, ice blue Australian Shepherd eyes and humongous pointy ears.

Yes, Shasta is a male whom we named after Mt. Shasta because he’s big, although we realized later that it’s sort of a feminine name. The first person to bring up this name issue was our neighbor Aly who was around seven years old at the time. She said, “Shasta. Isn’t that a girl’s name?” I said that no, it was a mountain’s name.

I decided that next time we get a pet, we’ll consult Aly first to make sure we don’t cause any more gender confusion. We used to have a girl cat named Ishmael, named after the black foreshadowing in the book “Moby Dick,” and because her long hair covered up her kitten private parts so everyone guessed that she was a boy when she was a newborn. Even our vet was confused and called her “he.”

In any case, the pet organization called Tail Chaser Rescue asked us a bunch of questions and accepted our application. The next weekend we drove up north of San Francisco to a small shelter near Mt. Lassen to meet him.

As soon as we walked in the door, we saw a worker holding a leash with a huge fluffy dog. He sat perfectly still and gave us his best "pick me" puppy dog look. I ran up to him and hugged him. I had six dogs growing up and had no problem getting close to him right away.

My husband and son, who never had a dog before, just looked at him in awe and said, “Wow, he’s big.” He is a beefy muscular dog which earned him the nickname of “my little pony.” He’s strong as an ox, too, which comes in handy if you are hiking up a hill and you need a pull.

We walked him some in the shelter yard, while all of the other dogs who were in their cages barked wildly at us. Shasta didn’t bark back which was a good sign. We learned later that the Aussie herding part of him doesn’t bark much because that scares the sheep he’s supposed to be guarding.

In any case, in less than 30 minutes, the worker handed us our new dog for a grand total of a $20 adoption fee, and an extra $70 that would be refunded if we could prove that we "fixed" him, which of course we later did.

We then drove all the way back to Saratoga, stopping once in a while to walk Shasta. It was interesting that he didn’t know how to walk on a leash and wouldn’t touch balls or toys.

He later learned to love stuffed animals but to this day, can’t fetch. When we toss him a ball he either chews it or takes it away.

In any case, here are the top 10 things we love about our rescue dog:

10. He’s a master balancer. When he wants something, he begs for a really long time and waves his paw at you which is cute.

9. He loves his stuffed animals especially his dogs, sheep and birds. He plays with them for hours and also sleeps next to them. This makes for adorable photos.

8. Like the Baby New Year in the claymation holiday movie starring Rudolph the Reindeer, we love his ears. The quote from the movie that comes to mind is, “Those ears! Those ears!”

7. He makes us feel safe. He either stays by my side or by the front door and often sleeps up against it, or guards the backyard. When anyone comes to the door, I feel safer seeing who it is with Shasta by my side. He doesn’t like people touching me. This includes handshakes.

6. He guards our cat Maggie, a big fluffy gray Norwegian Forest Cat whom we also adopted from a shelter about a year ago. She came from the Humane Society at Paseo de Saratoga Petco. If she hops through the doggie door to explore the backyard, the dog follows and then never leaves her side. This keeps her from getting in a cat fight.  No cat will go near our house with Shasta around.

5. He hardly ever barks which is nice. Sometimes dogs bark at every little thing all day and it can drive a person crazy.

4. The fluff factor. He has gorgeous long hair and a plume-like feather tail that swishes back and forth in an artistic and whimsical fashion.

3. His positive attitude despite a gimpy paw and elbow is inspiring. The shelter warned us that he had this deformity but he was still happy and functioning. He runs fast on surfaces like grass and smooth sidewalks. He just can’t walk more than four miles at a time and doesn’t do well on rocky surfaces. If his paw hurts he just walks on three legs or rests for a few minutes. A surgeon once offered to cut off his leg to solve the problem but he’s pretty happy with it so we declined his “generosity.”

2. The spots on his face are sooooo cute.

1.  He gives us unconditional love.

If you are thinking about adopting a new pet, definitely consider a shelter pet, or a rescue. We have done it a few times and have never regretted it.

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