Rosebud (formerly Luna)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
By: Kelly Mendenhall

Adopted in May 2011

I am the director at a community center within a public housing complex in Ann Arbor. I work with youth of all ages, doing all sorts of things. On a whim one day I ended up on the HSHV website, and noticed that they offered educational talks and shelter tours for youth.

I decided to sign my group up. Somewhere around March, I think, we took the tour.

A couple of the teens were so touched by everything that the HSHV does for animals that they asked if we could help somehow. Could we help raise money? Was there anything we could do to help the animals?

Flash forward to right around Easter. I had just gone through a very heartbreaking situation in which I had to say goodbye to my 19 year-old niece and her infant daughter whom I'd been helping raise for nearly 6 months while they lived in my home. They went back to Florida under less than optimal circumstances and I was having a much harder time holding it together than I wanted to admit. It'd been a rough year for me in a lot of ways, really. And I'm not the type that likes to have to admit emotional defeat.

In early May on a Saturday (when I would have rather done anything than get out of bed that morning) myself and another center director took a group of about 10 teens to volunteer at HSHV. We spent two hours cleaning up the grounds where the dogs walk and play, and were invited in for a shelter tour afterward.

That's where it happened.

I met "Luna" - an albino boxer with two different colored eyes and no hearing. Something about her was so sweet... I fell in love. I even sent picture messages from my phone to my boyfriend and best friend to show her off. My boyfriend said, "The stray people you keep taking in keep turning on you. Maybe it's time you tried for a dog." One of my teens, Deon, was also convinced I should take "Luna" home, but I was uneasy.

I don't make a boatload of money working in a nonprofit. And I had just finished all the coursework for graduate school and gone through this terrible heartbreak. I wasn't sure I wanted to let anyone or anything else in at that point.

That whole week, I couldn't get "Luna" off my mind.

A few days after the chance meeting I got a message from my boyfriend telling me that my sister had sent him $200 with the instructions to do something nice for me -- something to lift my spirits that I wouldn't do for myself. He asked, "Do you want your dog?"

The day before Mother's Day I went into HSHV telling myself that we would just walk her around and visit with her and see how it went. Ten minutes in I was hooked. I learned that her last owner had died. I was grateful to hear she hadn't been an abuse case but sad for her that at such a young age (she'll be one year old July 25, I believe) she had already suffered such a great loss.

She came home with me that day. Wouldn't ya know it, she was on sale! And we got a gift basket full of toys and other goodies too! It seemed the stars were truly aligning for this meagerly-incomed gal.

I never could have guessed that day just how much that sweet-faced pooch would change my life.

I decided "Luna" wasn't quite right for her. And when I looked at her and thought of her story, an old Johnny Cash song started running through my mind. Right about the time I was thinking about the lyrics to "Give My Love to Rose" my boyfriend said, "She needs a good honky tonk name. She's a Ramblin Rose."

And so it was that "Luna" became "Rosebud".

I was recently diagnosed with illnesses related to stress. It took two trips to the ER and three weeks of alot of pain before they finally figured out what was going on and got me on the right medication for it. When I spoke with my doctor about all the stress and heartbreak I'd experienced in the last year she said I seemed more depressed then she'd ever seen me. Then she asked me if I was getting any exercise.

I started enthusiastically explaining about the new addition to my home and how I walked her every day before work and after and our trips to the fenced in tennis court to chase balls. She remarked that I lit up for the first time during our whole conversation and said, "Ya know Kelly, I think that dog is what's saving you."

I have to say she's right.

Rosebud is absolutely one of the most amazing and sweet creatures I've ever been honored enough to come across. I'd say she chose me more than I her -- and I'll be darned if she wasn't the one who rescued me.

She's become my most popular topic of conversation. Every new discovery, new sign that she's coming into her own and becoming more secure here, every funny face or funny thing she does that makes me laugh out loud... I have become one of those dog parents I always couldn't stand! And I'm loving every minute of it.

Now, I've had other dogs before. I even have two cats, too. (Also rescues.) But there's something I can't explain about Rosebud. And everyone who meets her says the same.

I will forever be grateful to the HSHV for helping me to give Rosebud a new forever home. And to Rosebud for giving my heart a chance to heal.

I hope everyone has a chance to fall as in love with a pet as I have Rosebud. It's nothing like I've ever experienced before.