Lucky

In May 2002, a young Shar Pei mix was found, so malnourished that he could not stand up. He was covered in mange and deep cuts. Someone had dumped him in the country. The shelter staff spent months taking care of Lucky, and falling in love with him.

Mange is something that takes a very long time to cure, and the staff did not want him available for adoption until his skin was much improved. But living in a cage takes its toll on animals, and they start to go cage crazy.

We knew we couldn't give up on Lucky.

We put the call out to our wonderful volunteers hoping that someone would foster this wonderful dog - though his coat still had an odor and he needed to be medicated daily.

Lo and behold we receive a call from our volunteer, John, that he and his wife, Peg, would like to try to foster Lucky. This is John's story:

** I am a volunteer at the animal shelter and was not sure if I could handle the fostering of a dog. The problem was, would I be able to let go when someone adopted the animal? After talking to another volunteer who had done this many times, she encouraged me to give it a try.

So my wife and I brought Lucky to our house and he filled our home with joy and love. We borrowed a kennel to help us house train him which took about 10 days. We would put him out before bedtime, then tell him to go in his kennel for the night.

We were amazed how well Lucky responded to us and kennel training. He loved to play and would lay on a blanket between our two chairs whenever we sat down. I would take Lucky in the backyard and play ball, and he also loved to run around when I chased him.

We had Lucky for 3 weeks and then had to leave town for a week-end. That weekend another volunteer took Lucky to an off-site adopt event at PetsMart the shelter was participating in. Little did we know that was Lucky's lucky day! While at PetsMart Lucky met a lady named Kim and a special bond was formed. Kim didn't want to rush into anything, and went home to discuss Lucky with her daughters.

We got back from out of town and we were as happy to see Lucky as he was to see us. The next Tuesday we received a phone call from Kim, explaining to us that she had met Lucky over the weekend, and had just come from the shelter and done the paperwork to adopt him. She asked if she could bring her daughters to our house to meet Lucky. It was such an exciting time for all of us. I understand that Kim's daughters also took some of their money to adopt Lucky which made the adoption more meaningful, it was just a joyous time.

We agreed to keep Lucky until Friday so the family could spend the weekend home with him to get acquainted. We took Lucky to his new home on Friday night, and leaving him was not an easy task. When we got home and it hit us that Lucky was no longer in our care, we both shed some tears. We were also very happy that Lucky found a good family to love him. Now we get to go visit and he still recognizes us! **

The Georgetown Animal Shelter wishes to thank everyone out there for their donations of time and money that helped us save Lucky's life and find him a new home.