Sugar

Belle and Honey and I have a new member of our little family. His name is Sugar, and we rescued him. The name his irresponsible former owners gave him is Sugar Ray. Cute, real cute. I abhor the “sport” of boxing, so we dropped the Ray from his name. He is definitely a Sugar, a lover, not a fighter.

The only good thing I can say about his former so-called family is that they had enough sense to surrender him to Save-A-Pet. That was after they had used him for target practice with a shotgun. No shit. The vet who cared for him after his surrender picked buckshot from all over his precious body. He treated gashes behind Sugar’s ears that looked as though his head had been stuck in a barbed wire fence.

His former owners also neglected to take proper care of him, failing to give him heartworn prevention medicine or to feed him properly. Yes, when he was surrendered, he had heart worms, a severe case, according ot the vet. He actually said he had never seen such a severe case of heartworm where the dog survived the treatment. Sugar was rail thin, which is no surprise.

So, there is a reason Sugar is not in Doggie Heaven. He was meant to live with us. A couple of months ago, while dropping my dogs at Kottage Kennels for the weekend, I fell in love with Sugar. He was in a large kennel in the lobby, and I was drawn to him, even before I knew he was up for adoption. It was love at first sight. When the kennel owner told me he would be up for adoption after he had completed his heartworm treatments, I gushed, “Oh, he’s coming to live with us! Can we adopt him?”

Without hesitation, she said “yes.” She offered that another family had expressed a desire to adopt Sugar, but that she didn’t have a good feeling about them, and she turned them down.

It was meant to be! There was a caveat, though. He had to remain at the kennel until the vet was certain he was free of heartworms and able to run and jump and play without compromising his health.

So, we waited for several weeks, and finally we were allowed to bring Sugar home with us. Honey stuck up her nose at him, even snapped at him, feeling certain that someone was coming to pick him up. Belle was a little miffed, too.
Honey is the Lhasa Apso, and Belle, the senior citizen of the group, is the Boxer lying down on the foyer rug.

But, after a couple of weeks, they both realized Sugar wasn’t going anywhere and begrudgingly began to make friends with him. This acceptance came only after Honey had attacked him, driving him to jump out of the playpen. They made so much racket that the glass break alarm went off! I got Sugar a large kennel of his own, and that fixed that.

As you can see from the photo below, Sugar fits right in here in our little cottage. We just love him to pieces!


© cj Schlottman