Louise's Adoption Photo
March 2010

We adopted Louise in April 2010, when she was about 6 months old.  I decided that her birthday would be Oct 31, 2009 so she could be my Halloween Dog.  Squash E Bear was starting to really slow down by then and he was totally blind. I thought that getting a companion might help him on our walks and keep him company. I went on http://www.PetFinder.com and other dog sites and started to look for my next love.  After several false starts (one being a shelter adoptee that bit me and Squash the first night she was here), I was ready to give up.  Late in March we stopped in PetCo to buy guinea pig food on a Saturday and happened upon an unexpected adoption fair.  I was immediately attracted to this medium size male dog with long hair (like Squash’s), but the rescue leader tried to talk us into this very fearful little black labby thing.  I never thought about a black dog before, or a lab, and I was not interested in a short haired dog (I like the furry kind).  We took Louise for a little walk and she was timid and fearful. I really was not interested. After a while her foster family came to pick her up and I saw a different dog emerge.  She jumped on the kids and was really happy to see them.  We talked to the foster and went home to think about it.

As you can see from the adoption picture above, Louise was not in the best of shape when rescued.  They were having trouble placing her because people were scared off by the condition of her skin and her shyness, When you rescue an animal, you don’t know a lot about their beginnings. I was told that she was rescued with her sister, Thelma, at about 4 months old. The rescuers (MJ’s Sanctuary) went down to pick up a bunch of dogs from a kill shelter in North or South Carolina (that is where Maryland gets a lot of dogs) when 2 men drove up with 2 puppies in the trunk.  The rescue team tried to talk the men into releasing the dogs to them but these guys did not want to, so the team kind of liberated the dogs somehow before they could be taken into the shelter.  Hence her name, “LOUISE” (from the great liberation movie, “Thelma & Louise“).   I figure Lulu’s Mom was maybe a hunting dog who got pregnant and gave birth in a barn. Somebody put flea collars on the pups and threw some food at them but I don’t think they interacted much with them because she appeared to not be socialized to people, and definitely not to males. The flea collar was embedded in her neck and her skin was covered with terrible dry mange when they rescued her and she shied away from everyone.

Lulu trying to cuddle with Squash
April 2010

I decided that I would spend some time with Louise and see how it work with Squash.  As you probably figured, it did not take long for me to fall in love.  Though it has taken 2 years of work (which continues) to help her over the anxiety of life, I could not have been chosen by a better dog.  Today she is a loving and special girl, with a shiny coat and adoring eyes.

Louise Today
March 2012

Just another DogDaz morning at our house ❤