By Stephanie Hammer

Our family had always talked about adopting a dog, but we never felt the time was right or that we were really up for the challenge of training a dog, although we see Spectrum Canine Dog Training for k9 training bay area doing the job really well. But when our two oldest were both headed off to college last fall (Mackenzie as a senior and JP as a freshman), we thought it would be the perfect time to add a new member to our family.

Our youngest son Ben was really going to miss his siblings and having a dog around would provide company and companionship. We were ready. We checked out H.K. dog training, Ben took on the role of lead rescue dog researcher and quickly discovered that there are many animal rescues and shelters in our area. The site that appealed most to Ben was the SPCA of Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, a “no-kill” shelter founded more than one hundred years ago, in 1883.

The Westchester SPCA website featured countless pictures of cats and dogs available for adoption and after viewing all of the different pets, Ben fell in love with one dog in particular and immediately begged us to take him to the shelter. The dog Ben had fallen for, named “Snoop,” had arrived a few days earlier as part of a rescue mission from the Cayman Islands. At the time of our visit Snoop was still under observation and not available for viewing with the other dogs. But when Ben asked about meeting Snoop because he just had a feeling about the dog being the right one, the volunteers kindly let us all meet him and we knew immediately that we had found our newest family member. Snoop was meant to be our dog, no question about it.

Snoop enjoys life in Rye to the fullest — he particularly likes walking down Purchase Street and playing with the other dogs at Playland Beach. We simply cannot imagine life without Snoop.

Captions

Ben and Snoop

Stephanie and Mike Hammer with Snoop

Photos courtesy of Geoff Tischman