When Tom and I started looking for a dog we had visited the Sonoma County Animal Shelter's website. There was Riley. I mentioned to Tom that he looked like my parents' dog Milo. As cute as he was, we moved on, looking at other dogs. We finally adopted a 4 mo puppy named Buddy from the SPCA (no kill shelter). He was a doll, but we quickly found out that he was dangerous. After a week with him he had bitten me 3 times and tried to attack 3 people. We had a 7 yo boy with us and we couldn't risk him getting bitten. My vet reassured me that we weren't bad for returning him. He told us that he'd be 80+lbs and a HUGE liabilty when he got older. We decided to return him.

We weren't giving up though. We wanted a dog. I was looking on petfinder.org and noticed that the mutt I had seen before was on the "URGENT" list. He was dump job and they had picked him up walking down a rural road near Geyserville. No one claimed him. The shelter had him for 3 months. Not a single person had come to look at him. They had kept him for so long (longer than any other animal) because he was such a good dog. The staff's favorite, but because he was a large, 3yo, black dog, he just didn't stand out to potential adopters. The shelter could only give him one more week.

The story broke my heart, and because I was attracted to him from the beginning, I sent Tom to go get him, sight unseen. I told Tom he was bringing him home no matter what. Monday morning, March 21st, I called the shelter, faxed them the adoption papers and Tom picked him up. It was a big risk getting this dog that we had never met, but we went for it. Tom got to the shelter and walked by Riley 3 times not even noticing him. When he finally found him, Riley showed Tom just how sweet he was. Tom squatted down and Riley came to him and sat in front of him licking his chin.

We couldn't have picked a better dog. He wasn't trained, didn't even know "sit" but after taking him to obedience classes, we quickly learned how smart he was. He's the perfect dog.