The owner had a box for the new arrival, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
“Food is the only thing he loves more than me”.
Most dogs prefer to sleep alone at night, curled up at the foot of the bed or in a cage, but not George. A shrewd puppy can always tell when his mother is having a bad day and needs him around, so he insists. A special bed that keeps him close to her, just the way he likes it.
Jamie Croslow was in desperate need of a friend almost three years ago. Her youngest dog died suddenly of rapidly spreading cancer, and her older dog Jack, whom she adopted from a Guam animal shelter in 2004, was already in his twenties. “It broke my heart and surprised me because I always thought my older dog Jack would go first,” Croslow told The Dodo.
Croslow, who is now a social worker, spent her childhood volunteering at animal shelters and caring for her family’s Cocker Spaniel. So she started looking for another furry friend. While browsing the Petfinder, she noticed a small dog with brown spots and comically large ears. “They only had a couple of pictures of him, but he looked like a Corgi mix, which I really like because all the dogs I’ve had in the past have been Corgis or Corgi mixes”, Croslow explained.
Shelter workers told Croslow that George, along with 20 other animals, was abandoned in a trailer park after.
After learning more about George’s age and temperament, it turned out he would fit in perfectly with the Croslow family, so she agreed to adopt him without seeing the eye. A rest stop in Carolina halfway between the orphanage in Georgia and her apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina. Croslow could not hide her surprise when she first met George. didn’t look like a Welsh Corgi,” Croslow explained. “I felt like a dog had caught me”.
But her disappointment did not last long. “I look at that stupid dog and I think, ‘Well, I love you, so we should probably go home’”, she added.
Croslow had a box ready for her new arrival, but it turned out to be unnecessary. “That night, George insisted on sleeping with me in bed,” she explained, “and he has been doing that ever since”.
George hasn’t let his mother out of his sight since that first night. “George is by far the most comfortable creature (including people!) I have ever met”, Croslow said. “He just prefers nose-to-nose contact, which I can’t because I need to breathe, so he usually sleeps with his nose on my neck”.
While Croslow and George formed an almost instant bond, one family member took some time to adjust to the new addition.” When I brought George home, Jack looked at him as if to say, “What is this thing that you brought home? “Croslow took note of that. But although George still annoys Jack, now 19, he has become a younger brother, but they have become best friends.
The two puppies were by their mother’s side when she needed them most, demonstrating that there is good in the world even in the darkest of times”. Croslow said. “As humans, we wake up and think, ‘What should we do today?’ and it’s stress and anxiety – but with it, he lives in the present and finds the good in every moment. These dogs gave me a reason to get up in the morning and they brought me a lot of joy”.
Croslow faced one of the most difficult times of her life a year after adopting George, suffered a miscarriage and lost her job within a month, a strain that placed her relationship with her partner a heavy burden. Instead of letting their mother sink into depression, George and Jack decided it was time to pay back the woman who saved them.
“There were times when I just didn’t want to be on this planet. I lost hope and these dogs didn’t leave me”, Croslow explained.
