Posted May 24, 1998

Boots was a special little guy. His koala bear face melted our hearts from the minute we saw him. He knew about four months of happiness in his adoptive home; for reasons we cannot determine, he became very sick. Valiant attempts were made to save sweet Boots, but to no avail. He has now gone to Rainbow Bridge. We are glad his last months were filled with love instead of what he had formerly known, and we grieve his loss, along with his family.

Boots came to us when some extremely misguided person turned him in to a Baltimore shelter because she was "having company," and she didn't want a "smelly dog in the house." From the looks of Boots when we rescued him, his family had never heard of soap and water -- at least for dogs. He was covered in filth. If only more people realized what a good bath can do for a dog. No one would look at him in the shelter, so he had no chance there. All because some person allowed him to get dirty.

Boots cleaned up beautifully, and he won the hearts of a special family from Virginia at one of our adoption shows. No one could have foreseen the tragedy that awaited all of them. We thank these kind people for loving Boots, for doing all they could to help him, for being everything his former family was not.

We pay tribute to Boots' pure little resilient, fighting spirit. That will endure forever.