Happy Tails: Something to Wag About!!

Dear Jodi,  My name is Linda F. and my family and I adopted Kyle.  We wanted to write and let you know how he is doing.  The first thing I should probably tell you is that we renamed him "Teddy."  He is a smart boy and learned his new name within two days!  We live in Northampton, Massachusetts and we adopted Teddy.

My husband, Jeff, and I have three children; Jack, 14, Emma 10 and Lila 4.  We had our previous dog, a pharaoh hound named Kona, from Dakin and when she died this past summer we were all heartbroken.  So, after a few months we worked up the nerve to go back to Dakin.  When we walked in most of the dogs were barking, but Teddy sat quietly at the front of his enclosure, so, of course we met him.  Kona had been a gentle soul and we were worried that we would never find another dog as kind, patient and gentle as she was (and with a 4 year old you need a patient dog!).  When Teddy came out to the yard he walked right over to my 4 year old, sat down on her feet, leaned against her and looked up at her. We all fell in love instantly!  We hung out with him for a couple of hours and then decided to take him home.  You should know that while we were getting him ready to go home another call came in asking for him, so he was a very popular fellow!

He has made many animal friends.  We have two cats named Katie and Bart.  Katie is quite skittish so Teddy is very quiet and gentle when she is around.  Bart likes to play and Teddy and Bart have regular wrestling matches.  A friend of ours has two dogs, a golden retriever and a chocolate lab (Dottie and Cisco) and they took Teddy for his first swim at our local dog park.  He took a little time to work up his nerve, but then swam across the river and climbed out on the rocks.  He then didn't want to swim back across so my friend had to swim across and rescue him!  (I will try to forward the pics to you in a separate e-mail.)  He has several dog friends in our neighborhood who he has regular play dates with and he is having his first sleepover at his friend Latta's house over Thanksgiving as we are going out of town for the night.

Of course, as you already know, he is quite handsome and attracts lots of attention whenever we are out for walks.  He thinks everyone wants to be his friend and he is usually right!  We try not to let him on the furniture so he has two beds, one in my son's room and one in the family room by the fire.  But he is frequently on the living room couch or in my son's bed (stretched out with his head on the pillow!).

Anyway, this was a long letter to say Thank you, for raising such a wonderful little dog.  We just love him and he has fit perfectly into our family.  Feel free to write back and I will answer any questions you may have.  Thank you again.  Linda