It has been a crazy few weeks, but I simply have to post the story of a little dog a bunch of us met on January 22nd at the St. Hubert's Pet Therapy Evaluations in Madison.

Therapy pet evaluations are a series of tests to make sure that an animal is suitable for hospitals, nursing homes, schools etc.  The dog is asked to perform demonstrations of obedience and a basic good nature.  They have to sit, lay, stay, come and get exposed to a crowd, noise and medical equipment to make sure they wouldn't react aggressively.  The long and short of it is the dog needs to be trained. 

So when a woman this past evaluation passed with her first dog and then said she would be right back with the STROLLER containing her second dog, we all exchanged skeptical looks.  How could a dog pass this test in a stroller?  Are we really going to indulge this?

And then Finley came in.  And she won us over in a second.

Finley was not in a stroller because she was too prissy to walk.  Finley was in a stroller because she had trouble with mobility.  You see, Finley had been abandoned in the Bronx and was found with a broken leg, no teeth and weighing all of three pounds.

Her wonderful new owner (I apologize I forgot her name, but who was paying attention to anything else but this amazing pup!) got Finley to double her weight with a little TLC.  Finley's tongue perpetually hangs out of her mouth due to her having no teeth, however her owner is still managing to get her to eat.  Her owner is a nurse, and has already taken Finley to visit some patients.  Finley loves being held.  Her owner said stroke victims particularly connected to her, knowing she too, had been through something traumatic and had come out the other side okay.

Finley of course passed the test with flying colors.  Stroller and all. May we all have the resilience and spirit of little Finley.