| Meet Willy Moo |
When pet parent Lisa and her husband moved into their own house from a condo with a strict “no dogs” rule, they wasted no time in looking for a dog to adopt. “We both wanted to rescue a shelter dog,” says Lisa, “to give a dog who didn't have a home a better life.” So off they went, “just to look.”
"We could not resist his big brown
eyes and doggie smile."
At the animal shelter, they met Willy Moo, a stray who had been picked up by a local dog warden and had been in “doggie jail” for over 6 months, waiting for a home. “We could not resist his big brown eyes and doggie smile,” Lisa says.
The Perfect Christmas Gift
“He desperately needed a home,” she continues. “It was two days before Christmas and we knew he must be our special present. We took him home that day.”
But because Willy’s arrival was unexpected, his new pet parents weren’t quite ready. “We had no dog supplies,” Lisa remembers, “had not finished unpacking from moving into our house a month prior, and had no clue how to acclimate him to our lives.
Lost and Found
Due to what Lisa calls their “complete lack of preparation for this new life,” Willy was almost lost the very day he was adopted. “Outside for our first walk,” explains Lisa, “he slipped out of his collar and ran down the street to investigate a neighbor's driveway. We panicked for a moment,
"The former stray dog knew he had
found a good home and no longer
had the desire to roam."
then called the name the shelter had given him, and he came barreling back to us without a second thought. It may have just been dumb luck, but I like to think the former stray dog knew he had found a good home and no longer had the desire to roam.”
Willy Goes A-rooooing
“Willy,” says Lisa, “is a mutt, but mainly lab, which was the breed we thought would fit in best with our lifestyle.” These days, their lifestyle starts a little earlier — around 5 a.m., when Willy awakens. Once his pet parents get up, “he dances around excitedly as we brush our teeth and get our walking shoes on. Willy LOVES his morning walks. He will start barking and rooing at us if we don't get ready fast enough.” During their walks, “he has a huge doggie smile on his face.” When they return home, Willy races up the stairs and “lets out a long rooooooo,” Lisa says. “It's time for his breakfast.” (Blue Buffalo, of course.)
"You can never pet him enough. If you
stop petting him, he nudges your
hand to get you to pet him some more."
During work hours while his pet parents are away, Willy relaxes in his "bachelor pad" — the finished basement. When Lisa gets home, he wags his tail so hard that his whole back end wags with it. When her husband gets home a little later, Willy runs — tail wagging — to greet him, then runs up the stairs. “He stands at the top of the stairs and lets out a long ‘roooooooo’ to announce my husband's arrival home.”
“Willy is a super lovable pup,” Lisa continues. “He follows us from room to room just to see what’s up. He loves to just spend time with us. You can never pet him enough. If you stop petting him, he nudges your hand to get you to pet him some more. Some people may find that annoying but I think it just endears him more to us. He is definitely a special one-of-a-kind dog. He is also the most vocal dog I have ever met, and not with barking. He is very silly and loves talking to us to tell us about his day by rooooooooo-ing at us.”
A Landlubber Lab
“Labs were bred to be water dogs, explains Lisa, “but apparently no one informed Willy of this.” When she and her husband took him on a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine, he saw the ocean for the first time. “He seemed a bit scared of it and would tentatively go and sniff it,” she remembers, “then run away when the small waves crashed to shore. When we finally coaxed him into the water it seemed this water dog did not know how to swim. He sort of walked around, back and forth in circles, seemingly very proud of himself.”
“To this day, we have only seen him break into an actual doggie paddle maybe once. His style of swimming seems to be pacing back and forth in circles. I guess he never got the memo that he was bred for swimming.”
Willy and BLUE
"After adopting Willy," Lisa says, "we admittedly did not know anything about dog food." But she and her husband did some research and found that they liked "the high quality of ingredients in BLUE." So does their pet. "Willy really thrives on this diet," says Lisa, "and loves the taste. He always lets us know if we are a minute late on feeding time by rooooooooing at us loudly for his Blue Buffalo."
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