|
Maggie & Ralph the Wonderful Mystery Mixes  Maggie & Ralph the Wonderful Mystery Mixes Two mystery mixes, adopted four years apart from HSHV, act like long-lost sister and brother. And they are WONDERFUL dogs. I thought I was looking for a different sort of dog -- smaller and fuzzier -- when I found myself repeatedly returning to the cage of a shy border collie mix named Baby Bear (now Maggie). I noticed that she perked up whenever children entered the room, becoming very playful and losing all her shyness. When I returned the next day, she recognized me, offering her belly by pushing it against the door of her kennel so that I could give her belly rubs and scritches. I was hooked.We adopted her then (2008) as a 5th birthday present for my son. She's the gentlest, smartest dog we've ever owned. She is beloved by my family as well as all the kids in our neighborhood. Over the next four years we noticed how much Maggie loves playing with other dogs. She's always the "beta" dog -- rolling over on her back to show submissiveness to even the tiniest puppy. In March 2012, we started thinking about how happy Maggie would be with a dog buddy in the house. We'd never had more than one dog, so this would be a big step for us. Plus, finding another dog as wonderful as Maggie would be a long-shot. I vaguely remembered seeing a cute, adoptable dog on HSHV's website months earlier. I have no idea why his picture had stuck with me, as I wasn't even thinking about getting a second dog at the time. I searched back through old Facebook postings and found Ralph (formerly Rashid). Surely, he can't still be available, I thought. I sent a message to HSHV to check. He was still available! He'd been out of the shelter at MI-PAWS training, then in foster. We scheduled an interaction between Ralph and Maggie at HSHV. Ralph and Maggie hit it off immediately, and played as if they were long-lost brother and sister. In fact, they looked eerily alike -- both medium sized with black and white coloring. Ralph came to me, leaned on my leg (wagging his tail constantly, as usual), and looked up at me with a huge "smile". That's all she wrote, folks. Again, I was hooked. Four months later, I think we have the two happiest dogs and the happiest family on the planet. The dogs play ear-nibbling games, tug and chase together like little puppies. (Ralph is a senior dog at nine years old, but you wouldn't know it by watching him play with Maggie.) They are the most wonderful pets I could imagine. |
|
|