As you may or may not know, I’m on the board of directors for Project Rescue Chicago (PRC). Among my friends, this role lends a little clout to my role as The Dog Pusher. For me, it means that I have a unique and rewarding opportunity to meet some amazing people and to help some very special dogs who might otherwise not make it out of the city-run shelter system. The first sentence of PRC’s mission statement resonated with me: “We believe all dogs, no matter their breed or background, deserve the chance to live as pets.” Yes, they do! Sign me up!
In my short (so far) tenure with PRC, I’ve had the chance to meet some amazing dogs (including currently available Noomi, Hunk, Trevor and Mouse); I’ve been part of a unique broken dog rescue; and I’ve seen a few heartbreaking cases, including a trio of Dogo Aregentinos who touched every volunteer who met them, which you can read about here. But maybe my motivation hasn’t been entirely altruistic. Maybe part of it has been to feed my canine fixation. We tried fostering, but found that Toni has a low tolerance for house guests—dashing my hopes for following in the footsteps of Love and a Six-foot Leash. So instead I educate sixth graders, inspire teenagers and otherwise do my best to satiate my canine needs. But maybe what I was really doing was waiting to receive a photo like this:
"Whoo hoo! Goodbye shelter life, hello world!"
Maybe I’ve been hoping to find a meathead just like this and discover a sweet, well-mannered pit bull who is a gentle as he is playful; who has a naughty streak but is so mortified when he’s scolded that scolding him is as fun as playing with him; who can tumble around the yard for hours with Téa but still respect Toni’s smack-down ways with good humor. Maybe I ‘ve been secretly hoping to find a dog who can rock accessories:
"What? Too big for my face?"
Maybe I’ve been hoping to find a dog who would use the baby pool (since Toni doesn’t seem to care about it and Téa seems to think it’s a bathtub in disguise):
Maybe I’ve just been waiting to fall in love again. I think you’ll understand why!
confessions of a pit bull addict 
I thought there were two Dogos. I didn’t know there were three! Are they all still at AWL? And thank you for the link!
Hi, Joe. sadly, there were three – two females and a male. One of the females was in such bad shape that she had to be put down the same day we volunteered. You can read a little bit about her here: http://bwpaws.blogspot.com/2011/06/rough-week.html. Happily, the other two are on the path toward finding their forever homes.
I know this is probably a dumb question, but how can I follow this new blog? I don’t see a button or anything…
You can add it to your blog profile of blogs you follow until I figure out how to add a button. Sorry – it’s taking me a little time (of which I’m short on lately) to figure out the new system!
I managed to add a Subscribe button, but it’s starting to look like I may not be able to add a Follow button. I’ll keep researching, though!
Strut is super cute. I love his happy face!
Thanks for the link, I think. That is heartbreaking to know that one of them was euthanized. I need to go hug Summer for awhile. Thanks for the work you’re doing @PRC.
HOLD!! You adopted another dog??? AND, you switched to a new blog? How did I miss this?
Sheesh, the things I can miss in a week or two!
Seriously – it’s been a little crazy around here lately. I’ll catch you up as soon as I can find 10 minutes!
We were waiting to hear how it turned out! So exciting, and I can’t wait to read more about him! We also need to talk about the next collaboration. You have been so busy!
He’s gorgeous! No wonder you fell hard for him! Congratulations!
The new blog is awesome, too! One thing that will really help is adding the Google Friend Connect widget. I was using the Blogger dashboard, but mine now says it’s full. It will let me add other Blogger blogs, but not WordPress, Tumblr or any of the others. The GFC widget lets people follow your blog in Google reader, too. It’s really easy to install, and I’m not techie at all!
Thank you so much! I’ve done a fair amount of research and it looks like the Google Friend Connect widget only works for wordpress.org sites, not wordpress.com sites. I’m going to keep researching, though!
So Strut is part of the family now?! Wow. That’s so great! I love the new blog.