Name: Willow - 1-2 years old
Family Members: Jessica, 2 rescue kitties, Lily (12) and Pepper (3)
How long has Willow been in the family? Adopted from Dekalb County Animal Services on October 27, 2017
Profession: Health Scientist
Location: Tucker, GA.
Nicknames: Lunch (because I left work ‘to go grab some lunch’ when I was actually going to the shelter to look at dogs), Willow Bee, Bee Belle, Silly Willy
5 words/phrases that best describe Willow?
- Observant
- Houdini
- SUPER Smart
- Independent
- People Lover
What makes Willow unique? She can jump like no other! She has yet to find a fence or wall that can keep her in when she’s determined to be on the other side of it and her skills are really darn impressive.
Happy Girl!
Rescue Story: I’d recently and unexpectedly had to say goodbye to my beloved dog of 10 years and was still very much in mourning. I had a foster dog (who was formerly hospice but turned out to be treatable) that I’d had for 7 months and who had been officially adopted but was still hanging out with me for a couple of weeks until his mom could take him home. In the last 10 years, I’d rarely gone anywhere without my bud and had become very accustomed to always having a dog around. DCAS had a fee-waived adoption event the weekend before my foster was scheduled to leave, and my fear of being temporarily dogless along with the incentive of saving another life for free drew me to the shelter during my lunch break. My best friend and I walked up and down the rows and met a few dogs, but the process can be overwhelming and I didn’t feel like I’d really connected with any of them. We were about to leave, when I decided to walk down one row a second time, where I’d noticed a gorgeous brindle girl the first time through. She was so calm in the cage and looked me right in the eyes, even when everyone around her was going nuts. So I found a staff member and asked them if they’d pull her out for us to meet each other in a play yard. She did the normal amount of sniffing and running around and sitting on the bench (to this day she much prefers to be on an elevated surface than on the floor) and then she walked to the corner and jumped right over the 7-8 foot cement wall to the other side. We frantically ran back through the shelter, and yelled into the adoptions counselor that she’d jumped the wall as we tore out the front door to find her just hanging out in the bushes right where she’d hopped over. When she saw us she smiled and wagged her tail in a “what’s all the commotion about?” way and I knew that she had just the right amount of spunk to fit in with my crew. I’ve always had a thing for the too smart for their own good type, and any dog that can hop a fence in such a short amount of time certainly fits that description in my book. She came into the shelter as a very skinny stray. I can’t help but wonder if her previous family got sick of tracking her down when she continued to escape the yard. It took a few months for her to really settle in, but she’s mostly stopped jumping fences to escape and seems to be happy to stay where she is loved and gets the good treats.
Freedom Ride!
What is your favorite pastime as a family? Now that she’s comfortable in her own home, we’ve started exploring our neighborhood and discovered that she loves to hike trails and dip her toes in the lake. Hopefully we can continue expanding her horizons as it warms up and see how she feels about being a SUP dog!
What is life like since you rescued Willow? It is always a transition going from having an older comfortable dog to a young energetic one. I’d be lying if I didn’t say we both had a bit of an adjustment period at the beginning, and I wasn’t quite ready to fully embrace a new pup as I was still in mourning over my old one. We did eventually hit our stride though, and I couldn’t imagine life without her. She’s definitely making me get back to my more active outdoorsy self and that interaction has really helped our bond grow by leaps and bounds. We’re both becoming less neurotic thanks to the great outdoors and are figuring out how to effectively communicate with each other. She didn’t know what toys were or even how to play with them when she first came into my house, so seeing her transition from confused by squeakers to a highly effective toy de-stuffer has been really fun. She does a lot of throwing toys up in the air and rolling around on her back with toys in her mouth and acts like a real puppy learning about life.
Photographers Note: The first thing you notice about Willow is of course her beautiful coat and amber eyes....but then that all fades away because her personality takes front and center stage! This pup had me cracking up the entire time I was with them with her silly antics and zoomies around the yard. Then when we slowed down a bit for their family shot, this was how she posed! No prompting, she just went right to the full cockroach position! Jessica's comment was" yep, this pretty much sums her up"! Probably the best family shot I have ever taken! :) It's pretty clear this girls fence hopping days are over, now that she is safe, secure and loved, she knows were she wants to be...in her forever home!