Winn & Tupper

Human: Winn
Canine: Tupper
Location: San Francisco
Together since: 2006
Type: Herding dog mix
Favorite rescue group: Grateful Dogs

We had just received the sad news that our wonderful year-old retriever mix, Ripley, had leukemia. He was given only a month to live. We also knew that his very shy dog-buddy, Molly, around 9 months old at the time, would miss him as much as we would when he died.

So we slowly began saying good-bye to Ripley, snapping lots of photos of him at the beach, on his bed, with his favorite chew toy. And we started looking online for another dog. We had adopted both Ripley and Molly from the Tehama County Shelter in Red Bluff, California, so that was where we looked. In the process of bringing out both dogs, we had gotten to know a wonderful volunteer there named Frances.

She was the one who told us about a squat little brindle pup about five months old. Hmm, cute... we thought. But what is he?

Who cares. Frances raved about his personality. Loving, alert, playful, light on his feet. As soon as I met this little brindle dog, I knew we would keep him. He snuggled right into my lap on the drive back from Red Bluff and, once home, settled in as if he was always meant to be there.

We renamed him Tupper. As he's grown, he's lost his awkward ugly duckling look and is now a prancing, border-collie-ish, sheltie-ish handsome boy. On our walks, people offer all kinds of comments about Tupper--"I pay lots of money to have my hair look like that every month"! "What is he anyway?" Or "Oh, he's a Dutch Shepherd!" (A what?). Whatever he is, he's a one-of- a-kind dog we are lucky to know.

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