The Girl Before Candace
This is a prequel to the story of how Candace ended up in our lives and inspired me to create our dog rescue
Years before Candace was in our lives, before we decided to get a dog, before I met my wife, I became “besties” with another dog.
Her name was Dolly. The Pointer seen in the picture above in 2004, along with me and what used to be a full head of hair.
Back in my animal hospital days, Dolly would come in pretty regularly for boarding, and part of my job was to take care of the boarding animals. I always found myself spending a little extra time with Dolly. I was attracted to her sweet, calm and nonchalant demeanor. Amongst the chaos of working at an animal hospital she was a really nice change of pace.
I didn’t know much about dog behavior back then, but Dolly would be the first to introduce me to what a calm and confident dog is all about. It didn’t matter how many barking or howling dogs there were in the kennels, Dolly was always quiet, curled up in a ball on whatever tiny towel another tech gave her (I always gave her a bigger blanket), and she always wagged her tail when I’d approached her kennel door.
I still remember one time when a coworker brought her to the back area, said “where’s your boyfriend!!??” dropped her leash and Dolly came running to me. My family dog didn’t even do that!
I moved out of state right after the holidays in 2004. Dolly was boarding as she usually did during holidays, and on my last day of work I took this picture with her.
I never saw Dolly again, but as I’m sure most dog people will understand, she’s always had a special place in my heart.
From then on I always told myself, and eventually my now wife, that I wanted my own Dolly, and I couldn’t wait until we could have our own pointer. This post originally appeared on our IG feed on 4/30/2019
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw5f0gCnl0J/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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