My family says that I always wanted to rescue and save animals. I don't really remember that. I remember the incident with the caterpillar when I was seven or eight. We were traveling somewhere in the car and I had Butch, the caterpillar, with me. Butch got away from me and I made my dad pull over. Dad had to take out the back seat to find him. Apparently, while we were pulled over on the side of the road, a police officer stopped by and asked what was going on. Again, I don't remember that.

Fast forward twenty years or so when I bought my first house. A work colleague of mine kept mentioning that he was going to rescue a dog. He would show me website after website of all these cute, extremely different dogs, all needing homes. He encouraged me to go to an adoption event and check it out. I was just going to look, see what it was all about. I remember falling in love with one: he was beautiful. He had shepherd coloring, a barrel chest and a few Shar-Pei-esque wrinkles. I couldn't stop staring at him. He wanted nothing to do with me. While he was ignoring me, this other dog snaked over to me and threw herself into my lap. She was a 45-lb, 6-month-old, puppy, boxer mix with a long snout. I was in love. She was sweet, wanted love, and seem to think I was fantastic. 

Now I had a problem. Which one to choose? I was so drawn to the first dog: there was something about him. But, this gigantic loving puppy in my lap was hard to ignore. That's when the volunteers started "helping." "Having two dogs isn't much more work than having one," they said. My instincts questioned that statement but I didn't say no. A few hours and $500 later, I was waiting in my new home for volunteers to drop off my TWO new family members. Apparently they were called fosters but I'd never heard that before. As an aside, $500 (for adoption fees and supplies) was a huge amount of money back for me back then. I owned a car, granted a 10-year-old Honda, that cost me $800.

The Shepherd mix, with his rescuer in tow, arrived first. Fozzie Bear, as the rescuer called him, promptly walked over to the corner of my new dining room and peed on my brand new carpet. She quickly told me his brief history, and was off. (She did feel bad about the peeing.) He had been found running along the highway down near Virginia Tech and a vet student rescued him. It was exam time and so he hung out in the backyards of several different vet students while everyone completed their exams. The woman who brought him to my house grew up in Northern Virginia and brought him to the adoption event when her exams were done. Being a complete novice, having never owned a dog before, I didn't see the foreshadowing of his wandering ways. The next 14 years would involve me picking up Fozzie Bear up from police stations, neighbor's houses, the side of the road when he jumped out of my moving car as I was slowing to stop, etc. His wanderlust took him many places but he always came back to me with the help of kind strangers and occasionally on his own.

Thirty minutes after Fozzie Bear arrived, Ginger and her handler showed up. Ginger slinked into my house and promptly flattened in a corner where she didn't move for hours. Ginger was afraid of everything. Stairs were scary. Her crate was scary. People were scary. Fozzie Bear was okay, probably because he ignored her too. She was an owner surrender and I can't remember if it was at the strong encouragement of animal control that the family relinquished her: she lived tied under the front porch of their house. Her handler gave me two pieces of paper: a rabies vaccination certificate and half a page of medical notes that stated there is "no aggression in this dog." Foreshadowing alert:  though I didn't know what it was called until a decade later, I was about to be introduced to fear aggression. There I was, new house, new carpet (christened by Fozzie), new furniture, and a new owner of TWO dogs. Yeah, this isn't going to go well I thought. But here's the thing, it did.

I had suffered from depression when I was young and it hit hard when I was in my twenties. I was in therapy, and it was helping, but it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows if you know what I mean. It was hard for me to take care of myself, to get out of the house, to go to work. Now I had these two animals to care for. On the surface it doesn't seem like a smart move especially if I could fast forward a bit and see that these two would eat one of my sofas, gnaw on all my chairs and go through dog beds for breakfast. However, looking back on it, I think this was my last ditch effort to save myself.

These two brought me more joy than I ever could have imagined. They made my days manageable. They gave me hope.

Over the years we went on many adventures together. From backpacking and hiking, to living in Jacksonville and Atlanta, to going on daily walks with Ginger wanting to go, go, go and Fozzie, ironically, wanting to stop and sniff the flowers. (According to Fozzie, moving quickly was only for escaping.) They were both there for me when I met my future husband. Ginger only meeting him once and passing away 10 days later. She was with me for 11 years teaching me to love and be loved, preparing me for the next part of my life. Fozzie Bear hung out three years more to make sure this new guy was okay and, an escape artist 'till his last day, squeezing in a couple more adventures.

Since these two, I've had many more four-legged and furry creatures wander into my life: Dolly, the sheltie, who I found hit by a car on the side of the road in West Virginia; Kahlie, my husband's beautiful tuxedo cat;  Tiny, the 120-lb mastiff, who had terrible beginnings and who, for a brief time, was able to find safety and love in our home before the world became too scary and overwhelming for him.

Today my husband and I live with Lilly,  who moved in when Samantha, my hairdresser of 15 years, moved to Australia; Porthos, an alley cat who wandered into our backyard when our neighbor was rebuilding our shared fence and then was too fat, injured, lazy, or content to find a way out once the new fence was back up; he has now transitioned from street fighter to champion snuggler. And lastly, George, one of our many fosters and now a former Lucky Dog from Florence, SC who is snoring on the white cushy chair as I write this.

Why do I rescue? I never started out to rescue animals: I was trying to rescue myself. I needed help and Fozzie Bear and Ginger were there to help me. They taught me about love, caring, and the joy and purpose I could find taking care of another life.  Each animal that has crossed my path has taught me more and more about myself as well as showing me the many ways that I can help them. I am grateful to all of them for what they have taught me and feel blessed to be working with a group of wonderful people who are helping others (two legged and four legged) on similar journeys.