#dlotu

I think that this deserves a story, because it's a story that I love telling.  Straight out of university, I was recruited to work at a psychiatric hospital to help start up their research program (spoiler alert: it didn't work and I was laid off after 6 months). This job was about 45 minutes North of Dallas in my parents' town, so I moved back home while I was working there. 

The best part about that is that the city also had an amazing no kill shelter that I used to hang out at. I would look at the new dogs that came in every morning.  One day, they had a hideous looking picture of a Cocker Spaniel named Lady that I decided to go check out out of sheer curiosity. No one was there at my office so I left an hour early to go to the shelter.

When I got there, I went back to the puppy section where they keep the smaller dogs sometimes.  As I went back, this Cocker was stretched out to the top of the open air plexiglass pen so that she could sniff me.  When I walked around the room, she moved along the glass on her hind legs.  I petted her for a minute until a staff person recommended a "get acquainted room," which is much less creepy than it sounds.

In the room, I noticed that she had several chipped and missing teeth, had saggy breasts, had bald spots on her butt and tail, was severely underweight, and had a terrible runny nose and cold. She spent the entire time in the room waiting at the door, hoping to escape. I was told that she was most likely a puppy mill mom that they dumped in the streets as a stray after she gave her last litter (estimated she birthed around 4 litters.)

I adopted her right then and there. I named her Dixie because I wanted something Southern and the name Patsy Cline didn't sound right. I gave her the middle name Ribs because you could see every rib because she was so skinny.  When I finally moved out of the house to Dallas a couple years later, Dixie became their dog full-time after their dog Penny passed away. I adopted Dr. Dorian a short time later.