Callie

From Callie's Momma: Back in 2012, I was teaching Zumba in Wilmington and another instructor asked me if I wanted to help her with a zumbathon event with this local shelter where she volunteered. I said sure, I love dogs - sounds like fun. On the day of the event, I arrived early and got to meet some of the pups. I was immediately drawn to this sweet, quiet little girl in the back named Buttercup. I was shocked to find out that Buttercup had been in the shelter for almost a year. I signed up to be a volunteer and walk dogs that same day and came by twice a week for the rest of the summer. Buttercup was sweet as ever and was my favorite for sure. I found it super ironic that my dog growing up - Butterscotch - could have been her twin! I was amazed to find out this sweet girl had been rescued from running on the freeway in Los Angeles, hopped a cross-country plane and found herself here in Delaware! In august I informed my then-fiancé that we would be fostering a dog from the shelter. We’d always talked about adopting a dog once we had a house of our own with a yard and space. I decided that this sweet girl would be coming home with me that weekend. Begrudgingly, Chris agreed to “only foster”. Yeah ok. The day we scheduled for him to come meet her, the person responsible for her being saved also came to help with the intro. This was the first time I would meet Courtney, who quickly became one of my closest friends. Courtney told us her story, how she was driving to work one morning and saw this scared, sick little pup and chased her down until she lured her into her car to safety. Courtney told us how the shelter in Los Angeles had a 72 hour stray hold and because of the rate dogs were coming in, they would be put down due to capacity. In all her years of rescue, this one got to her and she made arrangement to pull this girl when her 72 hours were up. She tried for weeks to find a forever home in Los Angeles, each time was unsuccessful, at no fault of her own. She found out about this rescue in Delaware, where she was from, and got in touch with them and they agreed if she could get this dog to the East coast, they would take her. Across the country she flew and remained In the shelter for 13 months, always getting picked over by potential adopters. This sweet girl won my heart over and I knew at that moment she would be mine forever. When we got her home that day, Chris looked at me and asked “we don’t ever have to take her back there, right?” He was in love too. We signed her adoption papers a week later and changed our California girl’s name officially and appropriately to Callie. In the almost 10 years she’s been our baby, we’ve given her two human siblings - DJ & Finley - as well. She loves them like her own babies. In a million years, if we had tried to chose a dog to fit in with our family, we couldn’t have found a better match if we tried. She is sweet, gentle, playful. She goes on trips to the beach, on hikes in the woods and up mountains with us and we wouldn’t have it any other way! (2021)