Take the risk — it will change your life!

Just as I had envisioned, I was going to end up with (at least) two big dogs. They had to be dogs who needed a home and not some awful puppy mill.

Roscoe had completely brightened our world and there is just something about bringing in a dog to your home only to find they actually wind up living in your heart.

I started to make it known to the fam that I was seriously wanting to give Roscoe a friend to play with — you know, a permanent playmate. Based on my taking charge with Roscoe, I think they paid a little more attention this time, haha.

Now, just like before when we still had our sweet Maggie, the argument was that we did not have room for two dogs — let alone two big dogs. My argument is that they would have more space with us than in a shelter and while we don’t have a big house, it’s big enough to share.

Several years ago, I started to follow a local animal rescue, Cheshire Abbey, in Jackson, MS, on Facebook. I had reached out to them during 2020 when we had some terribly cold weather (for Mississippi anyway) and some neighbors of mine decided it was fine to leave their two dogs outside 24/7. I began to see all the things this rescue was doing to save the lives of innocent dogs here in MS.

I couldn’t believe the risks they took and the extremely dangerous areas in south Jackson they went to in the name of saving dogs. Heroic barely scratches the surface of what Chrissy Cheshire and volunteers have done and continue to do every single day.

In following Cheshire Abbey’s page, I would see several larger mixed-breed dogs that pulled at my heart strings. I knew that all the ones I was looking at needed a home and that because so many people are brainwashed into thinking certain breeds are vicious — who knows how long they would have to wait (or worse). Ugh.

My problem is that I want to bring them all home. This is why I cannot ever physically go to a rescue or shelter. I think it might break me and I would just wind up moving into the shelter since I couldn’t bring them with me. I digress–this is a happy story about a precious soul who just needed someone to take a chance—-and is now a part of our family!

Well, one sweet girl caught my eye. I saw in posts/pictures in September of 2023…and knew then. I showed my husband who was still unsure about adding another dog. I could tell when he looked at the posts though—a heartstring or two was pulled. (Yippee!)

I mean look at this precious girl:

Well, in October of 2023, my husband says he thinks he’d like to go meet Buffy! (I was trying my best to be patient and let this go-round be a little different by way of having family support vs “Suprise – I brought home another dog!”)

I was ecstatic. You see, we had just found out that my dad’s prostate cancer had come back and ….I needed this.

I couldn’t control what was happening to my dad, but I could try to save a dog’s life and make it better. I also knew that the love of a dog is like no-other. They can help heal you from the things you don’t even talk about – from the pain that they can sense, even when no words are spoken.

The next thing to do was to have a meet-and-greet.

I knew that as far as I was concerned, there was no question about the end result, but I also knew that this would only work if she and Roscoe could get along.

Now if you take a look at these two, you can see why we knew there was a possibility this wouldn’t work. They both can hold their own and while we knew that the information about Buffy indicated she loved to play with other dogs her size—we really didn’t know about Roscoe. After all, he has been the singular baby in the house for about 8 months at this point.

The day of the meet and greet we had already made plans to have dinner at my dad’s house. I knew that if my husband was on board we would still not be able to take her home immediately. I made it pretty clear, pretty fast, that I would be taking this baby home – it was only a matter of what time we could meet back up.

Y’all, one of the hardest things we had to do was leave her for a few hours (felt like years) so that we could go to dad’s for dinner and then meet back up.

OMG—my heart was overjoyed as my husband and I went into Jackson that night. We were headed to meet up with Chrissy to bring our new baby girl home!

Of course, in the back of our minds we were both a little worried about how things would really go with Roscoe. It was one thing for the two of them to meet on neutral ground, but we had no idea if Roscoe would be territorial….if Buffy might be food aggressive…we just didn’t know.

That’s the thing though—you don’t know.

You have to be willing to take a chance. You have to be willing to put in the work. You must know that two dogs, of semi-unknown backgrounds, who can both do some damage if they wanted to—is a risk.

Deep down, I think of myself as a risk my own parents had to take. They didn’t have any way of knowing if I might have some kind of medical condition that wouldn’t show up until later or if I would turn out to be a frequent flyer at the detention center.

They chose to take the risk.

It’s similar with dogs who need a home. They want to be loved and, like all of us, they are not perfect. They usually have perfectly understandable reasons to be scared or to lash out some in fear. They can’t talk to us and tell us their fears and even humans show fear in many different ways.

Remember, they have cracks in their lives too. They just need a chance to have someone show them how bright and warm the light is when it gets a chance to shine through.

Now, we did have some moments where we were not sure it was going to work out.

Those moment broke my heart in two. I wasn’t going to give up on her, but she and Roscoe tangled up a few times in the backyard—-and I won’t lie, it was scary. It’s not like we were going to be able to safely break them up and despite my husband growing up with a Rottweiler, this was new territory trying to handle two big dogs.

As a tip, one thing you can do to try and break up two dogs who are getting too aggressive is to use a water hose. Now I don’t for one second pretend that I know the best way to do these type things. I am simply telling you what we did in the moment. Well, my husband did after attempting to get out in the yard and break them up while I screamed like a lunatic.

I still to this day wonder if there were any neighbors outside at the time and what they must have thought. Thankful no one came rushing over or called the cops!

We decided to blow up a queen-sized air-mattress to sleep on with them in the den because Roscoe was used to being the king of our bed…and wasn’t too keen on Buffy being a part of that… in the beginning.

It seemed that our idea did work and eventually this happened:

It’s an amazing feeling when you realize you have done the right thing. Roscoe did need a friend and we did need Buffy!

I encourage you to support your local rescue organizations. They are the true heroes. I encourage you to consider making a difference not only in a dog’s life, but your own.

Take the risk. It will change your life.