the story of nozomi

as most of you know, i have a soft spot for dogs. over the last couple of years, hubby & i have come across a number of lost dogs and have done our best to get them back to their owners. about a month after we arrived on island, hubby took our pups out for their morning bathroom break. a few minutes later, he is calling for me to help him. i put our two pups in their kennels and a moment later, hubby brings in a medium sized dog with long, dirty, matted fur and no collar. she was jumpy and seemed to be a bit afraid of hubby.

i sat on the floor and beckoned to her in a soft voice and she immediately came over and allowed me to pet her. we wondered how long she had been out on her own. as we spent some time with her, we assumed she must have been someone's pet. we fed her and gave her a bath, as well as attempted to groom her - cutting out the matted chunks of fur. let me just say, she had kind of a bad haircut by the end of it. but at least she was clean.

we started making phone calls and trying to get information about where to take her and how to find her owner. turns out, the resources for saving animals are practically none existent. there is an adoption service run by volunteers that deal mostly with puppies & kittens. the vet and kennel on base was no help. the stray facility located off base (even had STRAY in the title) wouldn't take strays found off base. the local pound would only keep an animal for 5 days and then the animal is put down. we were trying so hard to do a good thing and kept running into walls and red tape. so we took her to a vet off base and had her checked out - she didn't have a microchip, was given her first set of shots, was dewormed, and tested for heartworm. unfortunately she tested positive for heartworms; however, the vet was very confident that she would recover with treatment.

after all that she had been through, i decided she needed a name - so i chose "nozomi" which means hope in japanese. we started contacting our small group of friends to get the word out about getting her adopted. as much as we wanted to keep her, it wouldn't be fair to her considering we already have our two pups plus a baby on the way. word got around quickly and we found a family who was willing to foster her until we found a permanent home for her. shortly after she went to her foster home, another family heard her story and gave her a furever home!

sweet nozomi