Name/Age: Moomoo - approx. 1-2 y/o
Family Members: Kris & Ross
How long has Moomoo been in the family? About four months (since early January 2019)
Professions: We are both professors at Georgia State University; Kris is a professor of organizational behavior; Ross, public policy.
Location: Atlanta, GA.
Nicknames: Noodle, Moo, Shitty Kitty
5 words/phrases that best describe Moomoo?
Shy
Cuddly
Spazzy
Stubborn
Sweet
What makes Moomoo unique? She LOVES other dogs – including being so tolerant of annoying ones. When she’s nervous, we know that we just need another dog to show her the way. The other day she was too nervous to walk down a busy street but she saw a tiny little puppy and his owner agreed to walk ahead of us so the two of them could guide her down the street. It was sad, but also pretty funny.
Moomoo enjoys her fine wine….corks!
Rescue Story: Since March of last year, we have brought home 11 dogs and 5 kittens from the shelter to foster. We take pride in how quickly we can get them adopted.
Moo was a different story. We knew when we brought her home that we were in it for the long haul. She was diagnosed with two completely torn CCLs (knee ligaments) and we had committed to fostering her through her surgeries and rehab. We later found out that she also had two luxating patellas (dislocated kneecaps) so the single surgery stretched out to two separate surgeries 7 weeks apart.
We met her because of her name. The shelter (DeKalb Animal Services) assigns names to stray animals without microchips when they arrive there. They named her Moomoo, which had been the same name as our beloved cat who had passed away a few months earlier at 19 years old. One of our friends and fellow volunteer, Stephanie, told us, “You have to meet this dog!” We did and she became a contender for our next foster to bring home. Her injuries sealed the deal; we knew we had to help her get well outside of the shelter.
For the past four months, we have carried her up and down the stairs in our house, taken her to swim therapy, and helped her rehabilitate her legs. She came to us so shy that she lived with us for THREE MONTHS before she would even leave our street. At four months, we realized she was never going to leave us. We just couldn’t see her going to another home – both because she was so shy and because we were so smitten. (Now she’s walking all over the neighborhood and we even went to a brewery the other day. She still gets spooked by the silliest things, though.)
Settling in with her “foster” parents (soon to be forever parents)
What is your favorite pastime as a family? Our favorite thing to do is snuggle. She LOVES snuggle time and will always try to get us to go to bed early by waiting by our bed.
What is life like since you rescued Moomoo? She’s our first actual for-real permanent dog (all of our others have been fosters). Before that, we had cats only. If we believed in reincarnation, we would say she’s our cats (Moomoo and his brother, Marino) in another form. She reminds us so much of them: she’s lazy and quiet. She is a little nervous around strangers but, once she warms up to them, she wants all their attention. She sleeps with us like a tick – pressed up against us. She doesn’t like to be cold. She shakes like a leaf when we put her in the car and she buries her head in our arms at the vet. She likes pouncing on her toys. She’s a real cat-dog.
She also makes us laugh all the time. No one would describe her as graceful. She doesn’t seem to know how big her head is because she bumps it into stuff (including us) all the time. She gets short bursts of spazzy energy where she hops around and usually ends up knocking herself over. She looks kind of like an animatronic dog, but with the wiring a little off.
We love her so much and we think she loves being the center of our little world.
Photographers Note: My first introduction to Kris was when she had reached out and asked if I take photos of just foster dogs to help them get adopted. My policy is that I will do that if the foster is living with one of our volunteers, however something in me said Yes. They live close by and I had been wanting to do more with fosters, so this was a great opportunity. After some emailing back and forth, Kris decided to wait until Moomoo had come out of her shell more, she was still pretty shy. Fast forward to a couple months later and I get an email from Kris again, saying “WELL.. we JUST foster-failed. We'd love to work with you on changing perceptions.” For the record, I LOVE these kinds of emails. What makes this story even more special is the fact that Kris & Ross had fostered so many before her and they knew pretty early on this special girl was meant to be theirs forever!
The day of the shoot, Kris had said that Moo was still pretty shy but she responds well to treats. As soon as I walked in the door, Kris handed me some turkey and the relationship began. Moo was quite happy to take some turkey from a stranger and warmed up pretty quickly. She is seriously the cutest little thing and those ears…COME ON! I could have photographed her for days!