Aspen  was one of the five young Golden puppies that were found together on a dirt road in Queen Creek. Although they were all small, they were judged to be 5-7 months old. Trying to locate the owner, the finder advertised the puppies on local sites. The puppies were checked for a microchip and none was found. No one responded to the ads. Due to the pack mentality they were exhibiting, with the four females following after the one male and he pushing the smallest female away from the food bowl, we decided it would be best to separate the puppies and place them in different homes. Since they were strays, we had to assume they had never had any vetting, so we had our standard work-up done on each puppy. All will be sterilized when they are around a year old. Our AGR transporters took them to Academy West Animal Hospital and named them all Fall names starting with “A”. Connie exclaimed that the finders were wonderful people, and she is sure that had they not taken in the whole group, the dogs would have either been hit by cars or become coyote food.

Aspen was placed with an adoptive family in Mesa. Connie and another one of our transporters, Robin M who lives in Chandler, arranged to do a combined transport. Robin met Connie in Tempe and did the East Valley half. She reported: On the way to the FWITA’s house, Aspen cried and barked for the first 10 minutes, pooped and peed in her crate and then fell asleep. When I arrived at the adopters' home, they brought their two Pugs and son outside to meet Aspen. The Pugs were barking with excitement, which scared Aspen, so she wouldn’t go near them. Aspen was a surprise for their son, so he was very excited! None of the dogs showed any aggression, so I picked up Aspen and we went to their backyard. The man helped me wash Aspen’s paws off since she had poop on them. He also helped me clean the crate. When we went to their backyard and let them all off leash, the Pugs were very excited. One of them barks a lot and Aspen didn’t care for it very much, but she warmed up to them a little, although she was not interested in playing at all. She sniffed around the yard and played with their son. She was jumping on him a lot so I corrected her. After we got the crate cleaned out, we went in the house, and I explained how to administer the meds, signed the contract, and reviewed the new dog manual. I also gave them a 2021 calendar and a newsletter. I gave them an AGR crate to borrow for a few weeks and highly recommended they crate train her. The adopter said she had never crated a dog before, so I explained if left alone without being crated, she will destroy things and it could be dangerous to Aspen if she gets into food that’s toxic or if she eats something she shouldn’t. Hopefully, they will follow through. I also recommended they bring her to a puppy training class.

The adopter sent us a follow-up statement: Nova, as we now call her, has been a great fit into our family. She is incredibly gentle taking food from your hand or even waits patiently and sits pretty for you to fill her bowl. This is dramatically different from our two food-crazy Pugs. She plays with our Pugs but especially with the younger one (Grumble) who is ecstatic to have the playmate. They chase each other around the back yard like maniacs. Nova is an absolute doll. She loves to be with her people, wherever they are in the home, so much that we think we should’ve named her “Velcro”. Nova has definitely brought some extra sunshine into our home. Now if we could train her to not “trim” our hops bushes in the backyard... I come out to a pile of sticks made by Nova. We are so happy to have her in our family!