After months of secret preparation and planning, we took my 7yo daughter for a birthday trip to HSHV. She thought we were going somewhere she could play with puppies. Her face when we told her she could pick one to bring home was something straight out of a Hallmark movie. Her dad and I had already looked through the Love Train post of pups that would be available that morning and had a list of the top few smaller pups we thought we were interested in. Rookie mistake on our part. She looked around the room and bee-lined to the biggest goofiest derp she could find. They put him in a little pen with us so she could meet him, and I remember thinking he had the softest fur I’ve ever felt on an animal. He bit my shoe. She fell in love. The rest is history.

Laslo immediately settled in to his new life as king of the couch, protector of the porch, and professional cheese sampler. He was a fan favorite at the dog park in our apartment complex. We DNA tested him and got a good laugh at the unexpected hound/chowchow/pyrenees results. He does certainly have a houndy bay and sense of smell– he can nose-to-ground hunt down “his kids” no matter how well the three of them hide. Funnest game of hide-and-seek ever. A wannabe hunter with tiny tortilla ears. And even all grown up, he still has a ring of fur around the front of his neck that could win prizes for being the softest thing in the world.

Fast forward a couple years, and we moved across town and no longer had easy dog park access. Our social furball had big feelings about it, and our fenced backyard was begging for another dog to come play in it. We started keeping an eye on the HSHV website again, and stumbled across the Private Adoption page. Something about Yoda (then Koda)’s little foxy face just caught my eye. I connected with the family who was caring for him who shared his story, and that they were essentially fostering him after his first owners couldn’t keep him, and were trying to find him a home rather than see him end up in a shelter. We settled on a weekend trial sleepover, but it was pretty immediately evident that Yoda was home. Since we had adopted through the private posting page on the HSHV website, we were able to work with HSHV to get him neutered and caught up on immunizations. We had to work through a lot of initial anxiety and behavioral quirks with Yoda, and we’re so thankful that we were able to bring him home via HSHV but without a shelter stay, as we really believe that would have heightened his anxiety and made finding an eventual happy home more difficult for him. Because we are those people now, we also DNA tested Yoda. He can husky scream with the best of them and circles around his furbrother to herd him back inside when playtime is over, so the husky/cattle dog result was not a huge surprise. He is absolutely the smartest dog I’ve ever worked with. He’s an excellent replacement for a weighted blanket. No tissue box is a match for his shredding ability. No vaccuum is a match for the fur he sheds. He is happy chaos, and he was the missing piece. We’re so thankful for the role HSHV has played in patchworking our family together.

Blanc & Koda, now Laslo & Yoda