Smokey!
Now we had a 6 year old huge, unruly Dalmatian with hip problems. We thought he would have to be a "forever" dog at our sanctuary. But a wonderful man named Richard saw Smokey's pictures on an email and "stepped up to the plate" to give him a new forever home! He came to visit and it was love at first sight for both he and Smokey.
Smokey's path was destined to cross with ours at Dalmatian Rescue of Tampa Bay. When the call came from the woman who had him asking if we could take him, I explained that because we were very small with basically no outside funding, we only concentrated on getting Dalmatians from shelters that were about to be euthanized due to lack of space. I explained that we had a hard time even keeping up with that and suggested she take him to the Humane Society of North Pinellas who we work with very closely. We did everything we could to help Smokey (whose original owner had died) to get a new home with ads and emails, but no one wanted a 6 year old Dal who was rather large (71 lbs.) and appeared to be pretty rambunctious. So Smokey waited and waited and waited some more for a new owner who never came.
Finally, in desparation, we got a call from HSNP. They said Smokey was becoming extremely depressed in the shelter, sitting dejectedly in the back of his cage and developing skin sores from laying on the concrete. It looked as though Smokey would not be able to hold on much longer. So, we borrowed a crate and went over our 20 dog limit and brought him home. The first thing we noticed was the constant trembling of Smokey's back legs and after a visit to the vet we found he had the beginnings of hip displaysia probably due to his large size.