Adopting a Dog: Our Story

Almost six years ago, I was looking at different pet adoption sites online for the perfect dog for our family. I grew up with animals and I wanted our 10-year-old son to have his own little companion to grow up with. It felt like the right age for him to take on the responsibility of feeding and pottying, and a great age for him to appreciate the bond between a boy and his dog.

We are an active family, and at the kids’ ages of 10 and 5 at the time, we were always exploring the island – the beaches, the trails, the lakes, Eastsound, etc. We were walking into town every weekend to the farmer’s market, and lingering anywhere outside that promised some fun, people, and beauty. The perfect dog for us would be a canine that wasn’t hyper but enjoyed going on walks and being together, a small- to medium-size dog that didn’t ransack the house, and one with a loving personality. We didn’t want a dysfunctional, traumatized dog, as I soon realized there are multitudes of those on the websites I perused. There are so many dogs needing homes, though, that we didn’t want one bred for us either.

One night I stayed up late to do a few more website checks, and I typed in the Friday Harbor animal shelter. What popped up in a matter of seconds was a photograph of an absolutely adorable little shorty named Sissy who was needing a home. She looked like a tiny golden retriever and was advertised as such. I grew up with big golden retrievers, and this little cutie caught my heart in an instant.

Not long before this, we had brought home a dog from the Orcas shelter named Mika. Her breed was a bit bigger than what we were looking for, but she was a beautiful, sweet dog that we decided to bring home for a multi-day sleepover. Her long, strong legs were horse-like, and when she got excited she kept herself under control so she didn’t become a bull in a china closet in our living room. Once outside though, she was ready to take on the world. We took her on brisk walks everyday and returned home exhausted because she basically ran us four miles each time. And I don’t mean jogs. Runs. I felt harried, but it was all new and exciting.

As the days went on, we continued past the sleepover phase. As our jaunts into town with her multiplied, we began witnessing a distressing pattern. Something about small children bothered her, and she would unpredictably launch toward a small child now and then, teeth bared and mouth ready for impact. YOW!! At this point, she was sleeping on the kids’ beds at night and we were enjoying her thoroughly at home every day. But our kids were young – we’d have years ahead of us around other kids at school and in town. It was beginning to look like a risk too big to take. Our boys were already falling in love with her and so was I, but the alarm bells were too loud to ignore. We would need to take her back.

We were also realizing that Mika would kill us all with her work ethic on a walk. She had two speeds – relaxing at home and running like the wind outside. She had no interest in going our pace; she had things to see. And fast!

I settled in for the dreaded talk with the boys, and even though they were already envisioning their childhood years with Mika by their side, they understood the concerns. Mika needed a job. A ranch. Lots of territory – away from other children.

The next morning, we walked to school with Mika, knowing it would be our final walk together. Our older homeschooling son and I said goodbye to his little brother and went inside an empty room at the Christian School where we practiced piano and math for two hours each morning. I had Mika lie down quietly under the table while we worked, and planned for our breaktime to be a walk to the shelter. A few minutes into our studies, a friend and her grandson came in the room unannounced to say hello to us. Without warning, Mika lurched violently from where she was tied to my seat, sharp teeth bared toward the little boy who had just walked in the room. The leash reached its full length and Mika’s teeth stopped just before the boy’s face before I could even say a thing about the dog’s child-aggressive propensities. It was frightening! We found out later that the boy went home from school that day because he was so traumatized from the experience. That was quite the affirming final incident with Mika, making it all the more relieving to return her to the shelter.

That wasn’t Mika’s only impact on our lives. Because of her extended sleepover with us, our cat ended up dying. We had adopted a wonderful kitten named Nina from the Orcas shelter a few years earlier. She had grown into a lovely inside/outside cat who could hold her own out in the elements and loved her life outside. From what we observed, she had never strayed far from home or explored what we call “the big road,” or Orcas Road, which is (scarily for cats) only one property away from ours.

The minute we brought Mika home, Mika saw Nina by the side of our house and her eyes lit up with excitement. She bolted toward Nina, and Nina fled like lightning. Nina didn’t come to the patio that night. We didn’t see her the next morning, either. Two weeks went by, and we desperately searched for her in the forest and up the hillside across from the big road. We left big yellow signs on the streets but heard nothing from anyone in the community.

One day, well after we had returned Mika to the shelter, the kids and I were out working in the garden and we heard a sound. They looked into the forest on our acre and there was Nina, standing aloofly on a rock, like she didn’t know us. Was it an apparition?! We ran over to her, and she greeted us like a slightly removed version of herself. We never knew where she went, but she was definitely skinnier.

We had Nina back!

Sadly, Nina had been forced to roam. She had grown accustomed to fending for herself and navigating life away from our little safe acre.

I received a call one morning from a friend. She had been driving early in the morning on Orcas Road, headed past our neighborhood to a farm a few miles down the road to milk cows before dawn. In an instant, a cat hanging out on the road ran in front of her car to get away quickly, and she hit it. It was Nina. She had a feeling it was ours, and she cried and cried on the phone as I comforted her and told her it wasn’t her fault. Then I hung up the phone and cried and cried that this beautiful, young cat was no longer going to grow old with us.

We were in no hurry to fill the void we felt, and knew from experience that we needed the right dog for our lifestyle, but when I saw the photo of this little dog at the Friday Harbor shelter, I knew we needed to act fast in case she was “the one” for us. She was too cute to last long. I immediately hopped on a ferry with the kids and visited her. What a beautiful, mellow, sweet little thing. We asked to be considered for the adoption of her, and we learned that there were already over 10 families in the running. The women at the shelter told us they would call us soon once they picked which family they thought was right for this doggie.

Interestingly, one of the women at the shelter had immediately taken Sissy home with her when she arrived at the shelter. She renamed her Alpine, but returned her to the shelter a month later – something about her husband not really gelling with the dog. We didn’t think much of it. We also lost our heads in a sense because of the list of people vying for Sissy-Alpine’s adoption. We should’ve remembered what we had learned from Mika’s extended sleepover – not to say yes until we know a dog better.

The next day we got a call. We were chosen to be Sissy-Alpine’s family! We could come and get her anytime.

Excitedly, the four of us walked on the ferry, headed to San Juan Island, and walked from the Friday Harbor terminal to the animal shelter. We met this timid little beauty again, who was in no hurry to cozy up with us. Especially not my husband. Nevertheless, we signed papers, acquired leashes and various accoutrements they offered us, and chalked up her shyness to all of the excitement happening around her. We walked with her back to the ferry – she walked like a champ – and reveled in how fortunate we felt to be the ones bringing her home.

Right off the bat, we discussed a new name. My husband came up with Roxy and we all liked it much better than Sissy or Alpine. Roxy immediately bonded with me and the boys, but she shied away from my husband. We dismissed it, as he’s tall and loud and she’s little and quiet.

We began learning about Roxy by her reactions to things. The women at the shelter had already told us about her difficult past, at least what they knew about it. Roxy had been found tied to a tree in someone’s backyard in a town in the California desert. No one lived in the house attached to that backyard. Was she abandoned before someone moved away? If so, how do you do that to a dog you love? You don’t. Perhaps they had done other bad things to her before that final abandonment as well. There’s no telling how long she was tied there, what she had to do to fend for herself within that tiny radius, and who/what messed with her while she was in that vulnerable, tied-up place. What we can guess is that it was really hot, and she has a lot of fur. She was most likely dehydrated, scared to death, and needing food however she could get it. Her teeth were in pretty bad shape for a young dog (perhaps late stage of a puppy when we adopted her), so it’s possible that she tried to eat things that aren’t normally edible. Who knows.

We also learned that someone, most likely a man, was mean to her. She acted like family with me and the kids, but she barked viciously at my husband whenever she was inside and he was outside. She acted like she was protecting us and keeping him away as much as she could. When my husband was inside the house, Roxy would not let him come near her. She flinched whenever one of us tried to pet her gently under the table with our feet, especially if we were trying to pet her hind quarters. Her reaction looked like she was scared of getting kicked.

She had other reactions too, most of which softened quickly over time. Except her attitude toward my husband. He began to feel like he couldn’t even come in his own house peacefully. And he definitely felt like he didn’t get to partake in enjoying his own little doggie. He couldn’t pet her, cuddle her, or have any fun whatsoever with her. For four long years. Only in the past few years, her fifth and sixth years with us, has she begun to allow my husband to pet her now and then, but the surroundings have to be just right. She has to be on her bed, or I have to be in the room.

As the years have elapsed, Roxy has also shown her strangeness with being on a leash. We figured a dog could go anywhere with us, and we ended up with a dog that has leash issues. When we take her on a walk, she stops in random places and stands still. She wants nothing to do with us making the decisions while she’s on a leash. She won’t budge. There’s nothing that will change her mind, so I’ve spent six years walking a dog half the time and carrying her the other. It’s really quite silly. I know exactly where she will stop on any given walk, so it’s just easier to pick her up and carry her for a time than get frustrated while she stands motionless.

I walked her every single day like that until about a year ago, when I finally decided I needed to draw my own healthy line in the sand. Now, I take her about every third or fourth day. I can’t stand to leave a dog in the house, bored, while I’m out seeing the world. It just doesn’t make sense. But when I take her with me, her non-walking is even more senseless. I’ve been endlessly patient with her over the years, knowing that whatever trauma she had was big enough to last this long in her memory, and I can’t believe someone would cause that kind of harm to a sweet little animal. We work around her issues by hiking.

And paddleboarding.

And cozying together, of course.

Where I’ve gone wrong, though, is with Roxy’s teeth. In all the years we had our two retrievers, we never had weird issues. Not only were they happy, loyal, content, and up for anything, they also didn’t have any problems. I think I was spoiled by the ease, and when Roxy came to us with teeth that looked like they belonged in an older dog’s mouth, I think I just chalked it up to her mysterious past. Dr. D., our local vet, made it very clear to me years ago that we should start brushing Roxy’s teeth and get her in for a dentist visit. Later I inquired about the cost of such a visit and my jaw dropped. I couldn’t ever remember our previous dogs needing special dental visits or having their teeth brushed. Now I know that I should have done it, as Roxy’s teeth have gotten much worse. Moral – trust your vet; they’re probably not being overly cautious.

Roxy now has a dental visit scheduled in April, and while Dr. D. could have brow-beaten me for letting it go too long, she assured me that Roxy will be okay even if she has to have some teeth pulled. Dr. D. said that even the plaque on her teeth can be removed.

Our little quirky sweetie is now somewhere around 7 years old, and for a while I was referring to her at home as “Little Miss Instagram.” For a time, our older son was posting a new photo of her every day after making her Instagram account called Roxy the Foxy Doxy. When she first came to us, the Friday Harbor shelter said she was most likely a mix between a dachshund and a King Charles spaniel. I think she must have some retriever in there too, as her coat resembles a retriever’s when we let it grow out in the winter.

Roxy is our little companion on many adventures, regardless of her idiosyncrasies. She sleeps on our son’s bed every night and is always ready for the next walk, even if she stops a hundred times along the way. Not a ball-chaser or a fellow dog-lover, her favorite thing is running alongside us in a big, open field, no leash in sight. Or hiking with me to the top of whatever summit I’m headed for. We had a few favorite destinations we chose from every day last year when my back was hurt and the only way it felt okay was when walking or running uphill for several hours at a time.

Our little athlete loves to hike endlessly, come home to a sunny spot on the floor on which to lay until the evening, and cuddle all night long next to one of her boys in bed.

If you haven’t been to the vet recently, her new place at 9 Hope Lane is beautiful. Don’t delay as I did, especially after these COVID years. It’s easy to fall off the maintenance bandwagon, only to regret it later. I need to follow my advice and get my own mouth to the dentist!