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Adolescent Reo today! We took this baby boy in from Miami as a foster dog through BCGSR. Unknowingly, the night before, MDAS performed emergency surgery to remove his left eye due to an "infection" that can be seen in his first picture. He came home with a bad stitch job, in pain and without proper medication, and was absolutely terrified. We found out he had a skin infection that caused his hair to fall out, too. This wasn't our first foster dog with BCGSR, but he was the first dog I personally picked up and got to name (Reo for "right eye only", with tons of help from the pro, Shirley). Over the next few weeks we did our best to nurse him back to health to be adopted. His potential adopters kept falling through and we couldn't handle the emotional roller coaster just to be let down again. It wasn't fair, he deserved a good home. Eventually we decided that because people continually backed out on him, that we wouldn't let that happen again, and we welcomed him in to our pack. Today Reo is 1.5 years old, and he's a very happy, very spoiled boy. He's made it through 5 major surgeries throughout the past 14 months. We found out that he was likely younger than the estimated 13 weeks when we originally picked him up from MDAS, and that his eye infection was actually severe blunt force trauma (likely run over by a car) that crushed most of the left side of his body- which was the reason for two more surgeries on his left legs/hip joints (totaling 3 surgeries, including his eye removal, just because of an accident when he was a stray puppy, hardly two months old). He has overcome several obstacles in his short period of time on earth. He still has some vision/depth perception issues such as misjudging walking around a corner in the house, how wide a door gap is, and whether or not he can walk through screened lanais. It sounds bad but he shakes it off and keeps going, and it gives us a little laugh; he doesn't know any different. He's also a people's dog rather than a dog's dog. He's very smart, trained in German, has a lobster toy as a security blanket, and is the best swimmer I've ever seen. He has a puppy brother and a puppy sister and he can out-sass them both! We love him.

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Bella before Odessa, it was love at first sight, I still remember the first time I saw her and my husband and I quickly thought the same thing, ADOPT HER. Bella came to us at the right time, we had just lost our first German Shepherd, Ella. Bella is super active, she wants to be playing all day, she is very playful with children. And for my husband she's another daughter. Yukon and Bella begin to be friends. Bella we love you!

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I know we like to think that Gaby is Rob Taub's and my dog, but there are mornings like this where we know who really has this puppy's heart.

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Titus today. He is a fun and lovable guy. He has come a long way. He still doesn't like other dogs. He loves to swim, cuddle and going on walks.  Looking at these pictures, look how shiny his hair is now!  We feed him American Journey.

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Axel came home on a Friday as a Foster. He had been living outside for the majority of his entire 14 months of life so we knew he would need a little adjustment time. 

Within a week he quickly adapted to our schedule. Became crate trained, learned to ring the bell to go outside and learned that Karma was the boss. He was adapting and I was falling for this fluffy guy. It was literally a week later that I called Big Cypress German Shepherd Rescue and told them that we were keeping Axel. 

The following weeks were outrageous to say the least. He ran into walls and couches. He learned to walk on a leash which was a chore to put it nicely. He was loud and whiney. He fought with our older dog Karma. He was “learning” how to become an inside dog,a family dog, but he wasn’t “warming “ up to us like I had wished for. 

I questioned if we made the right decision, as any human would have, but we knew Axel had potential. 

Than One day about a month/month and a half later he “got it”. He finally let us into his life and showed us how amazingly loving and protective he is of us. We were finally a “family.”

It’s now A year later and we are still working on training this boy but we love him for all his crazy antics, his loud barking and his “talking back” to us. He still jumps over the couch and runs into walls but when he’s affectionate to you it melts your heart and all the worries of the world melt away. 

We can never thank Michelle and the crew for saving this sweet boy and introducing him to our family.