Hello! I guess I should start off this blog by introducing myself, my family, and how the newest addition to our family, and who this blog centers around, Henry, came into our life! My name is Renee, and my husband, Kevin and I have 3 fur-babies: a 5 year old kitty named Aldo (Leopold!), a 3 year old golden retriever named Bailey, and our newest member: ~2 year old Henry! My husband and I got Aldo from a local humane society when he was about 10 months old, and then got Bailey 3 years ago when she was about 8 weeks old. We are very outdoorsy people, and love to hike, camp, swim, canoe, etc. We have always taken Bailey with us on our adventures, and rarely leave her at home.
With that face, I bet you’d have a hard time leaving her at home too! 😊 For about a year and a half, Kevin and I had debated whether or not to get a fur-sibling for Bailey. We would go through the pros: another dog!, playmates, cuddle buddies, best friends, etc! and the cons: it’s a lot harder to travel with 2 dogs, how can we accommodate another dog?, do we have the financial means?, etc. Needless to say, we eventually decided to just go for it – if another dog was meant to be in our family, we will find one another.
We had some prerequisites: we wanted a dog slightly smaller than our Bailey (60 lbs), but we love her personality so much, we wanted to find another golden retriever or golden mix. Let me tell you, in our neck of the woods, rescue golden/golden mixes are hard to find, and go fast!
After months of contacting and searching rescues, I found an adorable year and a half old Border Collie mix named Selena. We filled out an application for Selena so we could get a chance to meet her, and a few days later, Selena’s foster mom called to discuss Selena and see if we were still interested in meeting her. We learned that Selena is a distemper survivor, and with the cold Wisconsin winter weather coming, she was starting to have a hard time breathing as the distemper damaged her lungs. We were still interested in meeting Selena, and after figuring out a meeting date and time, Selena’s foster mom proceeded to tell me about another dog she was fostering that had just become available for adoption that day: a 38 lb golden retriever mix named Hunter.
Hunter was a recent amputee (mid September of this year). He was taken in from a high-kill shelter in Texas. Half of his tail was missing, one of his front legs had a large wound open to the bone, and his other front leg was broken. Someone had attempted to pin the broken leg, and it healed with the bone side by side. There was a bad infection, and the bone and nerves were dying. A rescuer down in Texas took Hunter immediately and contacted the owner of a rescue here in Wisconsin (Selena’s foster mom!). In only 4 hours, the rescue raised the necessary funds to have Hunter’s leg amputated, his other wounds tended to, his teeth cleaned, and get him neutered. After his amputation, Hunter stayed in Texas for 2 weeks. He then travelled to Wisconsin and lived with a family for about a month. Unfortunately, his first home did not work out and Hunter ended up going back to the rescue. When his foster mom first got him, he had a hard time just walking. She had Selena, a 30 lb border collie mix, and 2 larger 80 lb lab mixes. After 2 weeks of living with his foster mom, he could walk and was beginning to wrestle and play tug-of-war with the big dogs.
Let me tell you, after seeing photos of Hunter and hearing his story, we fell in love (and we hadn’t even met him yet!). However, we weren’t so sure how a tripawd would fit into our active lifestyle. Either way, we knew we wanted to meet both him and Selena, so one evening after work we packed up Bailey and drove about an hour and a half to meet them both. We took one look at Hunter and knew he was the one. It seemed as though he knew we were the family for him too, because he immediately ran over and put his head in my lap. Bailey was unsure of him at first (only dog – spoiled dog syndrome!), but he instantly wanted to play with her and followed her everywhere.
That night, I began to do some research on 3 legged dogs. Lo and behold, I found tripawds.com! The wonderful resources on this site helped firm up our decision that Hunter was the right dog for us.
A few days later, Hunter (now Henry) came home to us. We kept Hunter as his middle name as he knows it and will come to it. It’s been 2 weeks so far and he is settling in nicely. He is getting up and down the stairs and has been going for 1 mile walks (he wants to do more but we have been limiting him!). Bailey and Henry have become good friends and even the kitty adores him! This blog will be dedicated to our adventures with Henry and Bailey and his progress on getting healthy, strong and in shape!
Thanks for visiting!
