Chino

	We've discovered that Caroline is a terrible foster mother. Not terrible as in "Oh my God, lookit how she treats those defenseless animals!" but rather in the "But he thinks he lives here now - we can't give him away!" sense. That's how Chino came to live with us.

	Late one night, three days before we were to leave on a 10-day vacation, the phone rang. It was Ohio Pug Rescue asking if we'd foster a pug that had just been turned in, and if so could we go get him right away? Once we determined that OPR was okay with us leaving Chino and the Stars of Pugarama (aka the Snack Pack) with our trustworthy dog-sitter, Steve, we were on our way to Westchester, Ohio, to pick him up. Chino is a product of a broken home. The wife got him in the divorce, but then she moved and had nowhere to keep Chino. So he was shunted off to the husband, who likewise had no space. So Chino went off to the home of the husband's mother. Turns out she hates dogs and was keeping him outside in 100 degree heat. Not good! To get him into air-conditioning, the pug breed's natural summer environment, the head of OPR called a friend of hers in Westchester who runs a Japanese Chin rescue. Thus, Chino was rescued from the heat and spent the night with a bunch of Chins, including four puppies. (Caroline insists that there were double that amount, but they zoomed from one end of the house to the other so much that they gave the illusion of being a larger pack.) We got the call the next day and set sail for Chin Country about 10pm. After the appropriate paperwork we put Chino in the car whereupon we discovered two things: 1) he is a reasonably good traveler; and 2) he was stinky! Hanging out with puppies is not the best cologne.

	Home at midnight, his first introduction to Pug Acres Resort & Spa was a bath. He emerged relatively untraumatized and the first thing he did upon exiting the bathroom, still soggy, was leap onto the bed and make himself damply at home. He has slept there pretty much every night since (the only exception when Steve chose the guest bedroom while dog-sitting - then he slept in there). The next day he went to see Dr. Angel, the OPR vet in the area, to get checked out and to line up all necessary treatments (shots, neutering, teeth cleaning, microchipping, heartworm check, etc.) that were necessary before adopting him out. He was very healthy with the exception of green teeth and ultra-dragon breath. Over the next few weeks we started getting everything taken care of. His teeth were cleaned (and unfortunately five had to come out) which did not quite result in minty- fresh breath, but he's no longer in violation of most EPA regulatons. He was neutered, which was not a big favorite of his, but at least he stopped marking and Spike liked him much better (in fact, they are buddies now). Once everything was finally finished, Caroline wrote up a little resumé for him that prospective adoptive parents could view. At this point, we (OK, Caroline) realized that he would never find a home that would love him more than we would, so one quick phone call to Karen Ray of OPR and we had a new family member.