As some of you may remember, we took in two similar looking bullies, Ruby and Opal, in July, who were dumped in the same area and found a day apart from each other. After discussions with the shelter, it seemed like they were possibly a bonded pair and we do everything we can to keep bonded pairs together. After we made a post looking for a foster home for them, we were contacted by a wonderful couple, Arianna and Kevin, who had lost their bull terrier Rory that very morning. Although it was and still is a difficult loss for them, they felt strongly that the only thing would bring any sort of comfort would be to help out other bully’s who needed it most. Things progressed quickly and shortly after that, Ruby and Opal were in their foster home. Although at that beginning all seemed good between the two of them, after a little time, it became apparent that they weren’t bonded and needed to be separated as they began to have a lot of jealousy issues going on which led to some squabbles. All the while we were working on getting their medical needs addressed. When Ruby was found, it was quite obvious that she had an issue with one of her eyes. We got her into a specialist and learned that she most likely was born with glaucoma in the one eye and is blind in that eye. She had a procedure done to reduce the pressure in that eye and they also tested the other eye to see if it was predisposed to Glaucoma, thankfully it wasn’t. Once all of Ruby’s medical issues were addressed and taken care of, she was ready for her new home. Then one day we received a message from a woman named Terri. Terri had been a Bull Mastiff person for most of her adult life, she use to be involved in showing them and then eventually took in rescues. After losing her last Bull Mastiff, she and her husband Gene, had discussed the idea of not getting another dog but that thought came and went very quickly. Years ago, Terri had gone to Westminster and happened to be seated in front of the ring where there were Miniature Bull Terriers. Those mini’s had an impact on her and she never forgot that special day. Now, with no other dogs in her home, she set her heart on getting a Bull Terrier. She was interested in Ruby as she was looking for a bully who had all the bully attributes but wasn’t going to be bouncing off the walls with high energy levels. Our conversations went great and her enthusiasm about the idea of Ruby coming to join Gene and her was joyous to hear. We set out looking for someone to do a homecheck. Although we luckily had several people offer to do it, we decided to have one of our adopters, David Yount, dad to Blue Ridge alumnus Peanut, do it. The homecheck went great but as a side note we feel the need to share an additional part of the story. When we had told Terri that a gentleman named David Yount was going to do the homecheck, she took a peek at his Facebook page and thought that he looked like a member of a family named Yount who she grew up with and was best friends with one of the girls in the home. She went into her basement and dug through boxes of pictures and pulled out a few of her and her best friend when they were kids just in case. Once David arrived, they began to talk and lo and behold, it was THAT David Yount. They literally grew up across the street from each other. Terri pulled out the pictures of herself and David’s sister to share with him and reminisced about their childhoods. We are still stunned that this happened but thrilled that it did. With the homecheck done on Monday, we decided to make things happen quickly and yesterday morning Arianna, Kevin and Ruby drove halfway to meet up with Terri and Gene. Last night, Terri relayed the following to us: “We’ve done nothing all day because we can’t stop staring at her! “Awww…..look how she’s laying.” Awww. Look. She rolled over.” Awww. Look. She lifted her head.” Maybe tomorrow we’ll get a life”. We all found ourselves grinning ear to ear with those words and know that Ruby is exactly where she should be.
