Adopter Name

April Rain Catlin

Rescue Dog's Name

Lucky

Where Did You Find Your Dog?

We adopted Lucky while living overseas in Japan. My husband was stationed there (US Army 1st SFG).

Tell Us About the Moment When You Knew that You Two Were Meant for Each Other.

When we adopted Lucky we were told he had been in the shelter for almost 6 mos. Because of his breed we had to meet very strict guidelines to be able to adopt him and bringing him to the states was a tremendous challenge and 3 days of travel in a tiny crate in the cargo hold of a plane. Collecting him from the cargo dock, he was still happy and wagging his tail. Remarkable after all he had been through. When we brought him home we had no idea we were about to endure some of the hardest most challenging years of our life. I can't speak on the details of the situation, due to the nature of my husbands job. We endured months on end of complete uncertainty. We were truly being tested. Our wonder pup became our strongest, most reliable hero. He has the most gentle, loving nature about him.

How Has Your Hero Changed Your Life?

We recently did more digging into Lucky's past, we knew he lived with a family before being taken to the shelter. But an entire year and a half - 2 yrs were unaccounted for. Our vet told us the scars on and around his face were consistent with fighting dogs, or bait dogs. He has one ear that has severe scarring from being torn apart. She believes it's likely that he was slotted to have a much different life, but either wouldn't fight, or wouldn't give up on life. I tell people all of the time, he truly saved us. He has shown us that no matter what your past is, each day is a fresh start. We have recently started discussing getting him into some therapy training to be able to take him into the VA Hospital to visit with our vets.