In the beginning....

His family was evicted.  I hope they had loved him in his estimated year to eighteen months with them.  Yet they left him and his little poodle pal in the apartment with a huge bowl of water and equally large bag of food.  South Bay Purebred Rescue had canvassed many apartment managers in Silicon Valley area of California to call them in these cases. Evidence in the apartment suggested his family had most likely left only the day before. I sure hope so. I can't bare to think they were there for a longer period of time bored, unloved, uncomfortable.Meanwhile, in my own life I was going through a rough patch of my own and my doctor had written me out of teaching for a time. I missed my work and my students terribly.  The doctor suggested I get a pet, preferably a pooch.  I'd had one all my life, but not the previous ten years. So after a period of surfing the web....Rusty and I rescued each other.

My friend Diane Houston and I swung by a chain pet store and I purchased Rusty's pooch food, collar, leash, and a few small toys. But over the first few days of our love affair I began to understand this was not a playful pooch...at least not with toys.  And to this day, this is still true. My vet taught me that there are dogs who play with both humans, other animals, and toys, yet there are also dogs that play with only other animals and humans....not toys. So my fantasy of playing fetch was pretty much dashed, but he did like to wrestle and get excited for me. Before I knew it,  the hopelessness of my depression slowly began to lift as being responsible for this ten pound critter gave purpose to my long days.

Rusty's family may or may not have loved him, but they certainly did not invest in training him. He was not housebroken and believed the way to get off the sofa was by way of the new table in front of said sofa.  For an entire year I had to keep two decorative pillows on this table as I trained him in the proper descent the floor.  My son, living with me at the time, thought this was great....he could finally put his feet on the coffee table (pillows)! But my Rusty was a sharp cookie and in no time at all he mastered sit, stay, come, lay down and, most importantly....no. 

This pooch with the big heart was working his charm and  healing my heart.