We had a few dogs on the farm over the years, usually from the SPCA. We had a white Sheppard cross that was 16 and we new it was time to put him down so we got a Pyrenees cross to replace him and it was the dumbest dog ever and after a few months we took it back to the SPCA. By then we were pretty frustrated and decided to not get another dog. We went on a trip to the Canadian Rockies in October and when we returned there was a young adult Rottweiler on our step . She was skin and bones with half her hair gone. At that point we were just going to feed her and take her to the SPCA. It was closed for the weekend. After a couple days she became our dog. We took her to the vet and they thought she had Mange but never found any Mites. We figured out where she came from. There was a farm house 1 mile from our farm that was rented out and the tenants were drug dealers. They got evicted and left 2 dogs behind . One was found dead in the yard weeks later and our new dog found her way to our farm. Eventually her hair grew back as she gained weight. She weighed 40 lbs when she arrived and was 60 lbs in the same frame after several months. We named her Schatzi (German for sweetheart) We kept her outside in a lamp heated doghouse that first year until we went to our cottage . She would bark at passers by there so we let her in. She was the perfect house dog! Never got into anything or made a mess. When we bought our Florida house we didn’t want to fly as she would have to be in cargo ,so we drove 4 long days, 4700 km(3000miles)each way. We did that 5 years. We had to put her down in 2015 as she was developing cancer. She was the best dog we ever had. Loved people, especially us and was always grateful for everything we did for her. She loved being on the sailboat and would have loved the pontoon.
