Names: Lady Bo & Jack Burton
Family Members: Holly and Joshua, 2 kitties
How long have Lady and Jack been in the family? Lady - 5 years & Jack - 2 years
Professions: Public Health Analyst & IT Consultant
Location: Atlanta, GA
Nicknames: Lady Bo: Piggy, Piglet, Ladybug
Jack Burton: Jack, Jackie Pants, Baby Jack, Jack-o-Lantern
5 of the best words/phrases that best describe Lady & Jack?
Lady:
- Hungry
- Snuggly
- Can't control her licker
- Goofy
- Affectionate
Jack:
- Playful
- Snuggly
- Zest for Life
- Wigglebutt
- Velcro Dog
What makes Lady and Jack unique? Just one? : ) Lady loves eating so much! Unfortunately she has colitis so she doesn't get to eat many treats other then her food. Otherwise she will get really sick ...then not want to do her favorite thing...eating. Luckily for us, she loves her kibble so much that she thinks of it as a treat, which has been a blessing during training sessions. She eats dinner every day at 4pm and starting at about 2pm she starts giving us anxious side-eye and following us around the house, just waiting for her next meal...thus the nickname Piggy!
Jack lives to play!! He LOVES to fetch lacrosse balls and will run himself ragged. He can catch some serious air! On hot days he can be found playing with his lacrosse balls in his very own baby pool, as he also LOVES water. When inside the house, he has a one track mind.....bone, bone, bone...as in his nylabone. He loves to show everyone his nylabone and prance around the house with it in his mouth. He also likes to try and get everyone in the house to play keep-away with him by putting his nylabone in all of our faces. By everyone, I mean his dog sister Lady, Mom & Dad (Holly, Joshua) and his cat sisters. Poor kid never has any takers! HaHa! Jack is just an all around happy guy and shows it by playing his way through life.
A girl and her ball!
Jack taking a breather from play time!
Rescue Story: We met Lady Bo at a Sunday adoption event at Petsmart. She was pulled from Dekalb County Animal Shelter by Animal Action Rescue. All we know about her time before the shelter is that she was a stray. We told the AAR volunteers we were looking for a dog to adopt as soon as we moved into our house from our condo in about a month. The dog needed to be currently living in a foster home with cats (since we have 2 cats). We met two dogs that were being fostered with cats, Lady Bo and a brown dog named Charlotte. We walked Lady around the parking lot (I should say she drug us around the parking lot!) and she kissed us right away. We loved her pittie smile! Since we had some time before we moved into our house, we just kept going to AAR events that she was at so we could hang out with her more. She officially joined our family a few days after we moved into our first house. Before we adopted her she was bounced around to 3 foster homes, as a result seemed unsettled and scared of almost everything. It took awhile for her to know she was in her forever home, that she was well-loved and that she could trust us.
After having Lady for a few years, we thought it was time to grow our family and adopt a brother for her. We started looking online at rescue pitties and came across Jack who was just a 4 month old puppy. He was being fostered through Friends of the Forlorn. We loved their mission and that they have saved so many pitbulls. When we met Jack we were really going to meet his brother from the same litter. We really liked both dogs and planned to adopt his brother. Well, his brother's foster family decided to keep him and we adopted Jack instead. We are SO GLAD things turned out this way, as Jack brings so much joy to our lives. FTTF rescued Jack from a backyard breeder who was trying to sell him and his litter mates at a gas station. A FTTF volunteer thought this was a good opportunity for some outreach and education and convinced the breeder to stop breeding. They turned the remaining puppies over to FTTF and had the mom and dad dogs fixed. I shudder to think of the life Jack could have had if he had wound up in the wrong hands because someone wanted to make a quick buck.
First day home!
Gotcha Day!
What is your favorite pastime as a family? Lady and I (Holly) love to take long walks around the neighborhood. Lady actually prances like a show dog and gets all the gossip (i.e smells EVERYTHING). When the temperature drops Lady loves to show off her gorgeous houndstooth jacket.
Since we already covered how much Jack loves to play, I'd say our other favorite thing to do is snuggle. He's really always either playing or snuggling, not much in between for him! He loves to be right next to us on the couch or in the bed. He is an excellent spooner (both big and little spoon). Most nights he insists on being under the covers. We all love to watch TV or movies on the couch together, snuggling the whole time.
What is life like since you rescued Lady & Jack? For Lady, life is good. She is adored, loved, snuggled, warm, and all-around very spoiled. She gets to go play with her friends at daycare 2 days a week and sleep with her humans every night. She’s no longer the scared pup we first adopted, she is much more confident, and so full of love and trust for us. Our lives are so happy and hilarious with Lady in it, and she has changed us in countless ways. Every once in a while she’ll get to hang out with some kids, and she REALLY loves that. Perfect height for full contact smooches! Jack has lived a charmed life since he was rescued from the backyard breeder. First he was spoiled by a loving foster family, and that has just continued with us.
Lady and Jack are incredibly sweet to each other, and it’s obvious that Jack really loves having her as a big sister. He can definitely be a typical annoying little brother for Lady, but she really loves him too. I’d say that Jack has turned me (Holly) into more of a homebody than ever before. When there are sweet puppies at home who bring you love and happiness, and you for them, why would you want to be out all the time??
Life for mom and dad is louder than when we only had the cats, and a little messier, but we wouldn’t want it any other way. Neither myself or Joshua had ever lived with 2 dogs before, so figuring out how to manage a 2-dog house was new. We didn’t know much about pitbulls or the discrimination against them before we adopted Lady. Neither of us ever had a pittie before, and didn’t grow up around them. Since having her, we’ve learned all about these issues, initially from personal experiences of people giving us looks and keeping their distance. Now we are proud pitbull advocates, trying to educate the world about how amazing these dogs are! Since having Lady we adopted our 2nd pittie, Jack and can’t imagine how we ever lived without them! We love Lady and Jack, more than we could ever say in words!
Photographers Note: Walking into Holly and Joshua's house, I was exuberantly greeted by Jack as you would expect from his description above. Lady wasn't so sure about me at first. She gave me some side eye and a few barks. I do love the challenge of winning over a pup that is just not sure about me. Sure enough as soon as we went outside and the ball playing began, well then it was all good. I sat on the ground and before long Lady would chase her ball and every now and then, come over to check on me. Even gave me a couple smooches! Victory!! Jack on the other hand is just a good time guy, so joyful and sweet. You can tell he has never met a stranger!
I will say I absolutely loved that when Holly contacted me to volunteer she mentioned they wanted to do their family photo in matching Christmas pajamas. Right after the outside shots, we all came in, there was a costume change and it was like Christmas morning! Merry Pittmas to all and to all a good night!!!