My name is Zoe, and I live with my family in Matthews, NC.  My husband, Kevin, and I have two children, Emily (16) and Ryan (17 months), and two cats, Pooks and Gabby.  We started looking at rescue dogs a few months after losing our beloved Westie, Bubba, and one morning I came across MJ’s picture.  I absolutely fell in love, he was a white ball of fluff with his little tongue hanging out.  His family had to move and couldn’t take him with them, so he had been turned over to Old Fella rescue.  I immediately emailed, worried that there would be some restriction that wouldn’t allow us to adopt him. 

Happily there was not, and we began the adoption process, only to then find out that there were 7 other applicants who were interested in him too!  While I wish that every animal in rescue had so many people interested, it was an anxious week while we waited to hear the news.  Fortunately for us, we were the lucky new family for MJ!  My daughter and I drove down to Burke County on the most cold, rainy and miserable day ever in October to pick him up from his foster home.  Fortunately for MJ, he was staying with Old Fella volunteer Jodi and her wonderful family, and he had kids and other pets to play with. 

As Jodi had told us, MJ is everybody’s best friend, and that sums him up perfectly.  He ran in to greet us, and while I was worried he’d be anxious when we left, he fell asleep in the back seat and slept the whole way back to North Carolina (including a half hour detour in Augusta when my GPS failed me on a new highway interchange).  When we got home, my husband was waiting and brought our toddler, Ryan, out to meet his new friend.  They had so much fun running around the yard, there couldn’t be a better dog with children.

We’ve had MJ for almost 3 weeks now, and he’s been so good and adjusted so well.  He sleeps through the night in our bedroom, and is very good about telling us when he needs to go out.  He’s getting used to our yard and the fence still, but he loves running outside and chasing a tennis ball.  He would love to be wrestling buddies with our cats, but so far they’re not having it.  However, they have changed their attitude from icy to just frosty, so we have hope.  Ryan loves to play with him, and often runs to hand him his bone.  Unfortunately, he also hands him a lot of food.  I work from home, so he’s with me all day, and rides to the preschool to drop off and pick up Ryan.  He’s learned to sit pretty well, and will go to training pretty soon to learn some other tricks.  We go on a lot of leash walks through the neighborhood, and he loves everyone he sees, the other day my neighbor picked him up and held him like a baby!  He’s a little nervous around new dogs, but warms up pretty quickly.  However, as I told Jodi, there is a fire hydrant that makes him so nervous.  Every time we walk by it he walks on the other side of my legs.  Also, he does not like stairs.  While he will go up the two steps into our house, we can’t get him to go upstairs, so we have to carry him every morning and night!

I want to thank Old Fella and Jodi for doing such a terrific job with an unending and heartbreaking task in their community.  We thank you so much for letting us adopt MJ and we will continue to send pictures and updates.

Zoe, Kevin, Emily, Ryan, Pooks, Gabby and MJ