Happy Tails: Something to Wag About!!

Dear Oldfella,

We adopted Brandee in May of 2008 from the NH humane society. She and 2 of her litter mates along with several other dogs were brought up there from your wonderful organization. She was called Jewel and her litter mates were Onyx and Sapphire. I logged onto your website right after we adopted her and on your home page there was a picture of them with another littermates! When we adopted her we got a letter from you giving a little blurb of how you came to have her/them. In it, it said that Brandee/Jewel and her 3 littermates were left on the side of the road and someone found them and brought them to you. It said they were all about 3 lbs and thought to be about 4 weeks old I think. How sad that someone would leave them on a road where they could easily of gotten run over by a car or attacked by wild animals or something.

Our human family consists of Rick & Linda (mama & daddy), our 6 kids and 6 grandkids. You will see pics with Nicolas, Nicki, and Rick. We also have a cockapoo named Harlee that we got in April 2007 and we love her to pieces. When Harlee was little, we brought her to puppy school and started bringing her to a local dog park and saw how much she really enjoyed playing with the other dogs and decided to expand our family by adopting another dog. We live in Mass but have a secondary home in New Hampshire and our neighbor up there is Lauren, the canine manager at the NH humane Society in Laconia, so we asked her to keep her eye out for a dog for us. She told us about all the dogs that were being brought up that weekend in early May, 2008. On their (NH Humane Society) website at the time, they had a link showing animals that were coming soon and we saw that there were many coming up. We thought we would have a hard time picking among them and of course whichever puppy we chose would have to meet with Harlee’s approval too.

Well, on the day they arrived, Lauren called to let us know they were there and to come ahead. When we got there Lauren was holding Brandee (Jewel) and we just instantly fell in love with her. We did go and meet a bunch of the other puppies but Brandee just looked up into our eyes and we knew she was the one!! So we brought Harlee in to meet her to see if they would hit it off and of course they did and as they say, “the rest is history!” A friend of Lauren’s mom adopted Sapphire and renamed her Lucy. We got to meet her one time shortly after we adopted Brandee and have a picture of them that I’ll send. Also, the people who adopted Onyx renamed her Brandi and she also lives in Mass now (what a coincidence!). They sent some pictures of her to Lauren that she shared with us so I’ll send those too.

We just wanted to let you know how happy Brandee is and how happy she has made us. She and Harlee are so close and they just light up our lives. They love each other very much and are the best of friends. All our kids and grandkids love them too. As I mentioned earlier we are very lucky to have 2 homes so every other weekend and all our vacations we bring them up to NH. When we are there we bring them up the mountain where they can run around free without worrying about cars coming and we also bring them to the lake which is just 2 minutes from our house. There is a fenced in baseball field that we take them to also and usually Harlee is playing fetch (her favorite thing) and Brandee is walking around the perimeter smelling flowers and other animal smells.

She is so laid back. She reminds me of “Ferdinand” which is a story about a bull who was too laid back to fight in the bull fights. When we are home in Mass we bring them to a dog park that is on a peninsula that is gated and the dogs can run free and go in the water. Our Harlee will swim out to fetch a ball or whatever we throw but Brandee has not tried swimming yet. She does like to romp and splash in the water though so she tries to get other dogs to run with her or chase her while Harlee is playing fetch. She loves to poke around and explore and if she sees a cat, squirrel, or anything moving she loves to try to catch it. I’m not sure what she will do once she does catch one though. Probably just lick it to death!! She also likes to climb up on the picnic table, probably so she can see what’s going on in the neighborhood. She is just the most friendly, sweet little girl, always going up to people and other dogs and kissing them, her beautiful fluffy tail wagging a mile a minute. Another thing Brandee loves is the snow. Both her and Harlee just love to run through it and burrow through it.

Anyway, we just wanted to send you some pictures and to thank you for saving her life and sending her to us. Our lives have been so fulfilled because of our wonderful girls!!! We have many more photos that I wish we could send but I don’t have a scanner and am unable to put them on the computer. Take care and keep doing what you do. You are angels sent down from above to save these animals and it is people like you that make people like us happy. Please do not hesitate to call us or email us with any questions or suggestions. We like nothing better than to talk about our wonderful little girls.

Take care,

Linda and Rick