Lucky Dog Animal Rescue » Success Stories and Testimonials

Success Stories – Bo

iandixon — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:18:13 +0000

We were fortunate to adopt Bo from Lucky Dog on July 4th weekend this past year. Sadly,he came up from a high kill shelter in South Carolina but lucky for us and him, Lucky Dog came to the rescue! When we picked him up, he was matted and dirty but as sweet as ever. He bounded down the front steps to us, sat down and immediately started licking my hand – I knew he was the one!

He loves to swim, catch the ball, run, and cuddle and he’s a hit with other dogs, kids and our neighbors. I think my in-laws would adopt him from us if we ever gave them the chance! He has made our lives complete and I couldn’t imagine a day without him. Thank you Lucky Dog for the great work that you do!

Success Stories – Jacki (AKA Thelma)

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:43:33 +0000

In October 2011, I talked my husband into going to a Lucky Dog Adoption event in DC. I told him that we would go “just to look and check things out.” I had been wanting a dog for a couple of years, and after getting married in August and buying a great single family home with a yard, I figured that it was a great time to add a four legged addition to our family. When we got to The Dog Shop in Georgetown for the adoption event, I was drawn to Jacki (formerly Thelma at Lucky Dog) because of her adorable face, floppy ears, and white feet and chest markings. She was such a sweet and friendly dog, and I immediately asked the staff if she was still available for adoption. They said that she was still available, but due to my husband and my work schedules, we were not qualified to adopt a dog that young. I was disappointed, but I continued to look at the other older dogs still available for adoption. We played with many dogs that day, but I still kept going back to Jacki. The Lucky Dog staff saw how much we were drawn to Jacki and ended up letting us put in an application to adopt her, ensuring the fact that we had a dog walker to tend to her during the day while we were at work. Our lives have been changed for the better since that October day, and Jacki truly completes our little family in every way. She is the sweetest, most loving, even-tempered dog that I have ever met. My husband and I love her so much, and we can’t imagine our lives without her! Thank you Lucky Dog!

Success Stories – Herbie

jason — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:13:04 +0000

I’ll admit, I was a little nervous to start the pre-adoption process. Was it really ok to admit I worked a full 8 hour day? What if they deemed me an unfit dog owner–I dont have a yard? Those fears were put behind me as soon as I started talking with my adoption coordinator.

My “interviews” were educational conversations about Lucky Dog, their history, my wants and needs in a dog, and information about the resources Lucky Dog provides throughout and after the adoption. It was so reassuring to hear Lucky Dog “has made a commitment to this dog,” so if my circumstances change they are here to assist. It was now a team effort to find my new best friend forever.

Herbie could not be more charming. This little country dog is quickly learning about city life—who needs grass when you have newspaper boxes and light posts??!! There are so many people to greet while walking down the street just as long as he doesnt have to walk across a grate. I can see he has a little swagger in his senior citizen step. I couldn’t be happier to be the retirement home for this adorable guy and I have Lucky Dog to thank.

Success Stories – Brie

admin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:19:30 +0000

Just wanted to send out a quick email to say thank you for bringing us more love than we could imagine from one little pup. She is amazing. We have spent much of the last week running around the yard and cuddling.

Success Stories – Jake (AKA Joey)

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:38:12 +0000

On January 2, 2011 we adopted “Joey”, now happily named Jake, into our family at the Rockville, Maryland event.

As you can see, Jake is absolutely ADORED in our house and we jokingly say now his biggest problem is which bed to sleep in. He has a routine which begins with nighttime scratches in our daughter’s bed. After falling asleep for a while, he moves to our son’s room and eventually makes it to mom and dad’s room. We all look forward to our nighttime visits from Jake. In the morning he joyfully awakens the kids with licks and then visits his back yard to check for squirrels before coming in for his breakfast. He is the sweetest, most loving dog and we feel very fortunate to have him. Sometimes the kids still get tears in their eyes thinking of him being brought to us after living in the kill shelter down in Florence, SC. I tell them he is such a good dog that he was spared so we could find him and give him a home with all the love he deserves. What a happy ending for us all! Everyone is excited about Jake’s first Christmas with his family and there is lots of discussion about his presents this year.

Any time someone expresses interest in getting a dog I tell them about Lucky Dog and truly cannot say enough good things about you all. Jake is the star in our house and I wanted to share with you a small snapshot of his very happy life at home with us.

Thanks for all you do,

Emily Shaw Hannapel

Success Stories – Dexter (AKA Forbes)

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 03:22:31 +0000

We lost our beloved dog, Jenny a year ago August. It took me forever to feel ready for another dog. I started looking online this summer and had to stop several times, it was so difficult to see all the pictures and read the stories; I wanted to help everyone. In August, with summer vacations complete I started looking in earnest, applying to at least 10 different rescues and convinced my husband that we should adopt at least one dog (I originally told him we should adopt 2, and he quickly said “Only, 1″; I quickly said “Ok”). Lucky Dog was the first place I submitted an application, on a referral from a co-worker’s daughter who had recently adopted from you. There was a quick follow up from the Lucky Dog team, a home visit, a vet check and lots of emails back and forth.

We agreed that Dan and I would go to Falls Church on Sunday, September 4th. I had submitted a list of about 8 dogs that I hoped to meet that day. To my surprise they were all scheduled to be there. Great, I thought – we will definitely make a decision, because I don’t know how many times I could go through a day like that. When we arrived a few minutes after 12:00, the place was PACKED with dozens of dogs and handlers. When we finally made it to the table, I showed my list to a person who offered to help us. She quickly told me that 3 or 4 of them had already been adopted. Wow! Good! We looked at the puppies, as I had a few of them on my list, but quickly decided that they were just too cute for us to adopt. We knew that they would find homes and that we should focus on someone who might not be so readily adoptable.

Secretly, I had been in love with “Forbes” just from his picture. To meet him in person was wonderful. His handler that day was a very nice girl who lived in an apartment and couldn’t have pets and this was her first time volunteering with Lucky Dog. As soon as “Forbes” licked me, I was hooked. It took Dan a little longer, as he had his eye on “Maximillian”, a blue heeler mix. He was intrigued by reading about how smart they were. Later, we overheard a family of 4 that was walking “Maximillian” around say that they were prequalified. We were too, but if the kids in that family really wanted Max, I wanted them to have him, so I refocused Dan to “Forbes”. After some deliberation between the two of us, we agreed it would be “Forbes”.

I got some help with the paperwork while Dan went to purchase a collar, leash and tag. We had brought Jenny’s old things, but they were pink, and I thought “Forbes” would look much better in red! By the end of the day, after a visit to our very best “dog” friends, we had a name for him, Dexter!

It has been over 3 months now and we are so happy with our decision and I think Dexter is happy too. Attached are some pictures from our local pool’s end of Summer, let the dogs swim in the pool party. We had him less than a week and weren’t even sure that he would like swimming. Maybe he was one of those Lab mixes that was terrified of the water…….Nope! He loved it, as you can see from the photos!

I am looking forward to any opportunity to give back to Lucky Dog, in fact, my husband’s family chooses a charity every year to give our gift money to. It is our turn this year and we have chosen Lucky Dog! You should be getting several donations from donors named Zook! We hope it helps.

We love getting the emails, and would love to return to Lucky Dog so everyone who might have known Dexter (since I think he was with you for many months) can see him now.

Thanks again for everything that you do!

Beverly & Dan Zook

Success Stories – Sammy Rae

admin — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:38:58 +0000

I recently read the Lucky Dog newsletter and wanted to drop a line to tell you all about our Lucky Dog. We adopted Samantha Rae in August 2010 (she was named Rae before the adoption) and she has been a joy for our family ever since! Sammy joined our first born (also an adopted 4-legged child) named Wren and the two have been wrestling partners and lovable trouble-makers for the last 16 months. We love her spunky personality and never-ending kisses for everyone she meets. She is definitely a daddy’s girl though and wakes up with him at 4:15am every day to spend some quality time getting some extra-special pets and ear-scratches. We love Sam and can’t thank Lucky Dog enough for bringing her into our lives!

-Sarah & Diego Vicente

p.s. In the attached photo, Sammy is on the left and Wren is on the right. This was taken in the fall when we took the pups to visit our Alma mater!

Success Stories – Roxi (AKA Cosi)

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:36:44 +0000

Just wanted to take a moment to thank you for bringing our Jack Russell Terrier, Roxi (formerly Cosi) into our lives. She came to us from a kill shelter in South Carolina at only 10 weeks old. She jumped out of her crate straight off the rescue van and into our hearts! Roxi has boundless energy and loves to jump and run through the agility course we have set up for her. When she isn’t running and jumping she loves to cuddle with her “pet parents” and our other dogs, Prissy and Louie. We’re pretty sure she rescued us instead of the other way around!

-Beth Warner

Success Stories – Zak

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000

Thank you, thank you! We started out as Lucky Dog volunteers to help our daughter with community service hours for school and to spend time together as a family, all the while meeting some great dogs that we hoped would get homes soon. Little did we know that we would find our next family member there also. We had been going through a lot ourselves as my husband had been diagnosed with cancer the year before and we had discussed off and on getting our Harris (chihuahua mix) a little brother or sister to grow up with. We had volunteered twice and Zak the baby chihuahua had caught our eye and has been our newest addition for the last two months. He is our new life line – he comes to work with me everyday and is the life of the party. His brother is extremely protective of him and they play pony races around the apartment whenever they can.

The attached picture is Zak hanging out warming up after a cold day at the cabin we were at over Thanksgiving. He is the perfect addition to our family and we are definitely the lucky ones.

Thank you,

Jodi, Kevin, Amanda, Harris and Zak Rayford

Success Stories – Coors (AKA Bruzer)

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:53:56 +0000

It’s been 6 months since we adpoted Bruzer, and renamed him Coors, from you. He’s been a great companion for our other dog Miller and a barrel of fun and energy. He’s adapted quite well to his new surroundings and loves running around in the back yard and chasing his precious frisbee. Coors is getting ready for his first Christmas with us and has fortunately left the Christmas tree alone. His companionship with Miller has calmed Miller’s separation anxiety to the point where we don’t have to worry about him anymore. A perfect little poodle and we’re very glad to have him be a part of our little family. In the attached picture he’s the one on the left.

Thank you,

Rich and Angela Ottoson