For all those rescues out there...

[pitc9]

Jen (howl4metok) omg... just looking at your screen name makes me cry now!! Oh what a great life you gave him! He'll love you forever for it!
I have a friend that has wolfdogs and one was just diagonsed with bone cancer and has not been given long to live. Sometimes I think it's better not knowing what's to come.
Do you still have the others in the picture you posted? They all are Gorgeous!!
I have two rescues, my first is Sierra:

I adopted her from a GSD rescue back on January 21st of 2002. She was 6 months old and had been picked up as a stray and was in danger of being put to sleep because she snapped at the dog warden. So she's my princess now, still head shy, and will run and hide if voices are raised, and will still close her eyes and jerk away if you move your hand too quickly near her. She is quite the talker & she sleeps between/on my feet every night.
We realized she needed a "Buddy" so I started looking on Petfinder and found the man of my dreams. At a local kill shelter was a 1 year old male gsd. JUST what I was looking for. When I went to the shelter to see him on December 21st 2002, I was shocked to see how deathly terrified he was of everything!!!! Oh I cried as soon as laid eyes on him. He was afraid of his own shadow, crouched down as low to the ground as he could get, ears pinned back. They had to turn a small office into a room for him because they couldn't get him in a crate. There was only one person there at the shelter that he would let handle him. We went into a room and it took a loooong time before I got one tiny little smooch on my hand. That's all it took!! He won my heart with his sad eyes so full of fear. Sierra took to him like she was waiting for him her entire life!! and he took to her just as well! It was a match made in heaven!
He took to his crate with ease, but for the first 6 months I was the only person that he would allow to put him in his crate, he snapped at my hubby twice and to this day he STILL give my hubby a few low grumbles to remind him that he still isn't too sure of him. As most people here know, Buddy and my hubby still do not like one another... that will never change I'm sure but he'll never go anywhere! Buddy is my soul dog!!! He'll squeeze all 90 lbs of him onto my lap when I'm sitting in my recliner!! He's a mamma's boy for sure!