Who Rescued Who?
Denise is living proof that you should never judge a rescue dog by their blurry online photo
No, Denise is not my ancient grandma or a frail old aunt who wears turtlenecks almost every day. She’s my flat coated retriever border-collie chow-chow mix, who we adopted eleven years ago. She may not know it, but from day one Denise has been one of the most important parts of my life.
When I was just 9, a few years after losing our dog Jack, my family decided it was time to adopt a new family member. My dad, used to raising puppies, wasn’t sure if an adult dog would bond with us. After searching through hundreds of dogs on different adoption websites, we thought we had found the perfect dog: Nellie. She had wavy golden fur and was medium sized. Unfortunately, Nellie had a few serious health problems that would require a lot of time, money, and care that a busy family like ours couldn’t handle, so we had to let her go to someone else.
I was devastated. To nine year old me, Nellie was perfect; I even offered to be in charge of her daily medicine. When my Mom showed me Denise’s file a few weeks later, I was less than impressed, still holding on to a little resentment about Nellie.
