^ Unbelievably, Rudy was a rescue dog. We adopted him from the Annopolis, MD humane society 4 years ago when he was three. It's a bit unusual to find a pure breed in the pound, but we think that the previous owners were probably young, had babies, generally didn't know how to rear a dog, and just had no time for Rudy. Even though he wasn't a physically abused dog, it was obvious he'd been neglected socially and probably yelled at alot, and we think probably just penned up for his first three years. So, when we got him he was very shy and timid, tended to cower a bit, but showed plenty of signs of being the happy and compliant dog that he is. It took us a year to get him acclimated and to really trust us, and probably another year for him to eliminate all of the timidity. But now he's just a completely adjusted, happy-go-lucky lazy well adjusted cocker! He's just the perfect faithful dog and we both love him to no end!
We'd adopted dogs from the humane society in the past, but getting Rudy REALLY enhanced our view of this organization and now that we're a little older, we've been contributing more to various causes. I know it shouldn't be like that...IOW, just because we got a great dog, shouldn't be reason to support them more. It's not really that as much as Rudy helped us to realize what a great cause the humane society is. Most of our charity contributions go to support the humane society now and other animal preservation efforts.
