Reader Rescue Stories: Zoie and Gracie

This week we are featuring two reader rescue stories. One dog had sought shelter under a car during a thunderstorm and wisely chose to follow the nice ladies who found her home, and the other had already made two trips back to the shelter before finally getting a third chance and a loving furever home. We hope you enjoy reading their stories as much as we did.

If you are the pet parent of a rescued dog, we want to share your story, too! For information about submitting your story, click here.

How this Brave Little Dog Found Her Furever Home
By Cynthia Goldstein

This is Zoie, our beautiful little Lhasa Apso who came to us via our vet’s office five years ago. The vet estimated she was a year old then.

One day, one of the vet techs and her mom were walking home and they spotted this little dog hiding under a car during a rare thunderstorm in San Diego, Calif. They tried to coax her out but to no avail, so they decided to walk home and get some food to bring back to her.

Zoie decided to follow them home. As they were getting ready to return to her, they saw her sitting on the front lawn in the rain. They had no idea she had followed them home. So they took her in, dried her off and fed her. The vet tech wanted to keep her, but her elderly mother did not want another dog in the house, so they took her to the vet’s office in hopes of finding her a permanent home.

I had gone in to pick up Hershey (one of our other rescue dogs), and they told me they had a dog they thought would be perfect for me. I replied, “You know I have dogs, right?” We had just adopted Hershey, and we still had an old and blind Shih Tzu at home. I really didn’t feel I could take on another dog.

They brought her out to meet me and she rolled over for a tummy rub. I was hooked.

Someone had spent some serious time on this dog. She was spayed, knew the basic commands and was very well behaved. She had no collar, no microchip – nothing. We didn’t know if she got out or if someone just didn’t want her any more.

This is one smart dog. She picks up on everything very, very fast. She’s my best walker and will walk with me for hours. She also loves to play fetch. Whoever owned her before taught her how to do that.

Zoie is not without her challenges. She is stubborn, needs a firm but gentle hand in correction, can be snarky – especially with the other dogs – and has a tendency to feel that she is the top dog. But training is easy, as she’s intelligent and highly treat motivated.

She has anxiety issues. We never know what is going to trip her trigger or when, but we just take it as it comes. For obvious reasons, she doesn’t like the rain or thunderstorms, so much so that we have to give her a mild sedative to take the edge off so she can relax and feel safe.

Whenever I take her out to the dog park and she sees a small child, she just melts. She adores small children and will allow them to pet her. She even gets them to throw her ball for her!

She is a very sweet and loving dog. I enjoy her so much, and I’m so glad she’s ours now! I can’t imagine my life without my Zoie at my side. She has given me so much and each day is a new adventure with her.

Thank Grace for Third Chances
By Kasey Konkel

I have two pedigree show Vizslas who are very well trained and spoiled because they run twice a day, seven days a week. After visiting a shelter and seeing all of the sad, desperate puppy eyes hoping to meet their new owner, my family and our two dogs took a two-hour trip to a Pointer rescue to see if we could give a dog who needs to run a second chance for a good life.

As soon as we got to the rescue, we saw a little black dog at the fence, searching for a new owner. She was not interested in playing with the other dogs; she just wanted to go to a furever home.

After our dogs met her and welcomed her to their pack, we got her story from the rescue volunteers. As it turns out, she had been returned to the rescue once before and she wasn’t even 2 years old.

Apparently the little black dog, a German Shorthaired Pointer-Lab mix, had previously lived with a female owner and an abusive male.

They told us that she needs a home where she’ll get a lot of exercise on a daily basis. Once “exercise” was mentioned, we knew that our dogs had welcomed the right dog into the pack. Not only are our dogs walked twice a day, we are an active family and my daughter and I are runners who cover between 25 to 30 miles a week with the dogs. Because we have a second home close to a national forest, the dogs also get to run free as we hike the mountain trails.

We named her Gracie, as we believe that she was given grace for a third chance at a safe and happy life.

PHOTOS: Cynthia Goldstein and Kasey Konkel

i Love Dogs, Inc.

i Love Dogs, Inc.’s three websites – ilovedogs.com, ilovedogfriendly.com and findavet.us – provide information and up-to-the-minute news to keep pet parents aware of all things dog. A premium canine vitamins and lifestyle company, i Love Dogs is famous for its line of diamond dog collars. The name says it all — at i Love Dogs, we are committed to the health and happiness of our canine companions.