How Shadoe came to be

About 19 years ago, I went to Bemidji, MN with my parents to visit my brother. While there, I made my usual trip to the pet store. I had wanted a dog for the longest time, but couldn't make up my mind as to the breed I wanted. My sister had a german shepard and my brother had a doberman. These were two of the best dogs anyone could want! Anyway, when I got to the pet store they only had one dog there. A six week old doberman/shepard mix! Right then I knew, this was my dog! She turned out to be the best dog I could ever have. Right from the start I knew she was special! I never had to tie her up outside, because she would never leave the yard unless I was with her. In later years, I took care of my Mother when she became ill. I relied on Duchess to let me know if she needed help during the night.

On the night of March, 2, 2005 Duchess came into my bedroom and wanted to sleep with me. Being an old girl, I had to lift her into my bed. She kissed me, and layed down for about an hour. Then, she got up and whined to let me know that she wanted to lay with my mom. (This was sort of a ritual with us). This night seemed different, though. I carried her into my Mom's room and told her that Duchess wanted to sleep with her. Both my Mom and Duchess were happy. A couple hours later, Duchess whined again. She wanted down. I went in and helped her down. She walked into my room and layed on her bed, looked at me and "smiled".

I suddenly woke a few hours later with a start. Instantly I knew that Duchess was gone. She knew that her time had come and wanted to say her goodbyes.

I decided that getting another pet would be too hard. It is wonderful having them for several years, but losing such a close companion is devastating!

Well, that lasted for about three months! The hole that Duchess left in my life and my heart was just too great. I found myself looking on petfinder.com more and more. The first time I went on I was going to look for an older dog. One that had lived a hard life, so that I could make the rest of their time happy. Well, I came across this younger girl. I just couldn't get her out of my mind.

I contacted the shelter where she was at and learned that she had been a stray prior to coming to the shelter where she had been for about four months. They knew that I was interested in her and when I said that if anyone else wanted her to let them adopt her, I was told that no one other than me had showed any interest in her. I thought, "It wouldn't hurt to just look at her". So I agreed to meet them in Cloquet, MN just to "check her out".

When I was going to leave my Mom said, "Don't forget your leash" and then she smiled. Mom's, how do they know these things? Well, I brought her home on a saturday and took the following week off of work so I could give her time to adapt. My Mom was very frail, and I wanted to make sure this new addition to our family would work out. On Monday, I took my new girl with me to get some more supplies for her. I was driving down the road when I looked in the rear-view mirror to see how she was doing. What I saw cemented her into my life forever!

She was sitting up in the back seat of my car with her head and nose pressed into the corner where the door and seat meet. She was visibly trembling. I pulled the car over to the curb, turned back to look at her and ask her what was wrong. She looked up at me and I saw big tears running down her face! She thought that I was going to take her back! I almost cried, too! Right then and there I knew that this relationship was going to work!

And that was how my "Shadoe" came to be!