The sad story of the Sassy Lassie, and how she came to live with us

Sassy is now 5 years old. She's a jet black Irish Setter/ Lab mix. She was owned by some of our neighbors in Kansas City, who'd raised her from a pup. The family was a busy one, with teenagers constantly in and out. As most families who have experienced teenagers know, they are prone to leaving doors open. Sassy would then exit said doors, and enjoy the vast freedom of Lenexa's lovely neighborhoods. Not only that, but she quickly realized that she could easily sail over their chain link fence to freedom.

Animal control had picked her up numerous times, and once again, she found herself at the local animal shelter without any identification. This time, however, her family was tired of dealing with her, and decided to abandon her. As luck would have it, another neighbor of ours works at a vet clinic that donates regularly to the animal shelter. She was delivering donations, and happened to spy the familiar, friendly Sassy. Not realizing the situation at home, the neighbor bailed her out, and brought her home, only to be confronted with "We don't want her anymore. She's too much trouble."

The neighbor, in tears, came over and explained the situation to us. Being "dog people," and having just added an addition to our fence (Sasha had also discovered the joys of jumping), we agreed to take her temporarily. HA! Andy has now agreed to quit smoking in order to keep her (which he's taking his sweet time with, but he's at least seriously talking about it), and we applied for and received the much sought-after "multi-dog" permit, which entailed far more inspections than went on at Abu Ghraib, apparently. In any case, Sasha and Sassy are best buds and wrestling partners. Nik is still asserting some dominance, but things are settling down. Sassy almost went to live with my sister, but she and Sasha became so inseperable, we figured we should keep the next best buds together. In a happy twist of fate, my sister found and rescued a wonderful lab mix whose time was running very short at the shelter.

We seem to be acquiring a herd of little black dogs! Ok, maybe not so little. Sasha weighs in at just over 50 lbs now, and Sassy, lithe as she is, is about 60lbs!

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