A New Sweetheart

Meet Nessy (new name Tess), a Border Collie/Retriever mix who just arrived from the Humane Society of Utah, via Stacy's dad and his travels. While she looks pretty normal and happy, she was born with a severe deformity to her left front leg.

The ulna and radius (the forearm of a person) didn't grow down and straight with a paw (or hand) at the end. One bone grew too short with one toe, while the other curved, and a partial paw, with 2 pads and 3 toes rests at the end of it.

The wonderful folks at the Humane Society tried for quite a while to place her with no luck. I gave them suggestions of messageboards and forums to post her story which they did, and while many people thought she was cute, no one wanted a young dog who doesn't look normal. When asked if she could come here, of course we said yes! With some time and training, we hope she'll make a wonderful ambassador for the sanctuary and play an important part in our humane education and pet therapy programs that are in development.

We're calling her "Tess" because it's pretty close to Nessy, and we thought it important to have a name not so close to Loch Ness monster fame. She's really brought new life to the other dogs, because at 18 months old, she's still all puppy, and Border Collies can play all day!