My story begins about 2 years ago. I have a Chow-Collie mix named Cruise, beautiful guy, sable coat, with an extremely bushy tail, and black tongue. He is smart as a whip, and it gets him in more trouble because he is so analytical. Catches mice, birds, rabbits, chipmunks, you name it, his yard is his place and no other wild critter allowed.

Mocha home from Shelter

My girlfriend decided it was time to get a dog, and she wanted it to be a rescue from the shelter. Looking at all the guys in there she and her son landed on a very non-desrcript black mutt, very friendly and hyper. I noticed sitting in a corner kennel a brown speckled Australian Shepherd named Mocha, he was shaking terrible and would barely move. His kennel tag stated dog aggressive, he was filthy and did I say he was shaking really bad? I went home thinking about him all night, how he looked at me with those really sad dark brown eyes.

I called my girlfriend back and said let’s switch dogs and get that Australian Shepherd, not knowing the first thing about them, but for some reason I was drawn to this guy. He had this save me look to him that is hard to describe. So she called and we ended up with him at her house. He turned out to have a really bad case of kennel cough. Took 6 months to cure him.

He started to spend weekends at my house, and I would have to return him on Mondays, with him whimpering when I left. I really started to appreciate the breed, the velcro way they stay with you, the fact that he could stand up to my Chow-Collie mix, and put him in his place, and Cruise is much bigger and stronger then Mocha. Must be the whole pack leader, alpha thing.

December 2008 I filled out an application to volunteer for ARPH (Aussie Rescue Placement Helpline) to maybe donate my time to their marketing and web site issues, search engine optimization, mobile/mobi site adjustments (I do SEO and Mobile web where I work) but they had other plans

So there you go, my first step towards becoming a rescue volunteer. What a ride so far