Why must I choose between my two boys?! ..... its... so hard! I suppose I'll choose Ethan since he has "more of a story"...


Here is Ethan the night we adopted him.
We adopted Ethan on Sept. 18th, 2004. It was my birthday, and out of the blue I decided that as a present, I wanted to take Frisk to Petco to walk around and such. When we got their, we did our usual rounds (looked at the rodents, reptiles, birds, etc.), then we did something we usually didn't do... really look at the dogs there for adoption. My mum, who always denied that she liked dogs, said that she really liked the "scared, skinny one". I looked over to him and I knew we would be together soon. He looked so pitiful and lonely, standing in a corner with a rope-like toy he was carrying around, his tail between his legs. He would constantly look at the people who were in awe over the puppies, as if he was saying "What about me?". He kept his distance away from the crowd and never approached anyone. He was already 10-12 months old, and was the only "older" dog amoungst the small puppies for adoption. A lady that organized the adoptions began talking to us about him. She said that he was rescued from an abusive home. One where a man kept around sixty crates stacked up ontop of each other with dogs in it. The dogs were abused, and Ethan shows signs of having such a tramatic first year of life. Ethan was underweight at that time, by around 5-7 lbs. The lady also told us that he has been through many homes, but none of them ever lasted. He had "issues" as they put it. My mum did something I never thought would happen. She said that we could foster the dog for a week! I was absolutely excited. I walked slowly up close to him, as not to frighten him, and I knelt down, putting my hand out for him to sniff it. I expected him to cower off into a corner, but he didn't. He took a few steps toward me and let me pet him. At that moment, I knew we weren't just going to foster him, but that we were going to give him his forever home. My mum filled out some papers and we found out that he didn't have a name. We would figure that out later. It was finally time to take him home. He was so scared in the store, that he couldn't move. My sister had to carry him out of the store, and I remember how so many people there thanked us and complimented us for adopting him, since he was the "older", more timid one. On the 45 minute ride home, he behiaved so well, just sitting in someone's lap. Him and Frisk got along from day one. When we got home, my dad had no idea we had a new dog. When he saw him, my father began to cry tears of joy. I'm unsure why, really. My father then sat down on the floor and held Ethan in his lap and continued to cry. It was really touching, and I went outside with Frisk and cried a bit, too. I came back in and Ethan and my father had made themselves at home on the couch in the living room. I didn't know that for the next week, Ethan wouldn't move from that room. Its true, for the first week that Ethan lived with us, he didn't leave the living room, he was too scared. You couldn't even talk above much of a whisper or else he thought you were getting on to him.
At the end of this year we will have had him in our lives for two years. It seems like just yesterday he was just that cowering, timid dog. He is now our beloved member of the family.
It took us a whole year to get him fully potty trained. And I remember times when my mum and dad would threaten to give him back to the shelter, and I would remind them that he's still learning how to be a real dog.
To this day, he is still really timid. If you even just yell at someone in the other room to come to you, Ethan will think that you're yelling at him. He's deathly afraid of thunder storms and car rides. But despite his "faults", we wouldn't want him any other way.


Here is a picture of Ethan taken yesterday. You can see how different he is, how much more happy and healthy he looks.