Drawing the Pup

December 17th, 2007

We adopted Ginger, a 10 month old German Shepherd mix from the humane society in November. We were looking for a calm, mature dog after our 17 year old shih-tzu, Reuben, died in October. We were so used to an older, low energy dog, that we weren’t sure if we were ready for a puppy, so we were looking for a very calm dog. In the kennels they have color coded shapes to describe the dog’s personality, so we wrote down the names of a few ‘mellow’ pups that we wanted to meet. We came on a Saturday, so we could only pick two dogs to spend time with. The first, was Carmen, a mixed breed, from a home where the owner had died of old age. We felt sympathy for Carmen, but she was growling and nipping. When we were introduced to Ginger, she wagged her tail and seemed to be starving for attention. They told us that she had come from a home where she had been neglected and spent most of her time in the back yard tied to a tree.

We chose Ginger even though she was a much younger dog than we had been looking for. Several people at the HS had commented that Ginger was the sweetest dog they had ever had. We picked her up the next day after she had been spayed, but were told that she had picked up kennel cough. We took her home and she began to get very sick. When we took her to the vet, they told us that she had a pneumonia and an infection that was spreading to her joints. She developed a lump on her back and her legs began to swell up. The meds we were giving her were not working, so we had to leave her at the vet for about 10 days. We were told that she was very sick and that she might not make it. Eventually, she pulled through and now we have the sweetest dog in the world.

I had recently said, “with a name like Aleman, too bad we don’t have a Ginger in the family”.

This drawing of Ginger (GingerAle-man) was done in about an hour (maybe two - I lose track of time) with a black prismacolor pencil.

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