Friday Friends

Today is Friday Friends Day and I'd like to introduce you to Eddie, our Jack Russell.

Eddie was picked up by the dog pound after he was found running loose in a bad section of town. He had no identification and no one called or came by the pound to claim him. After three days of waiting, he was scheduled to be euthanised because he had a bad limp. That's when the Robeson County Humane Society stepped in.

One of the volunteers goes to the area pounds each week looking for dogs and cats she can rescue. She thought Eddie could have had a broken leg and she rescued him and took him to RCHS's no-kill shelter. But when he was examined, it turned out he had been shot in the leg. It had happened some time previously (he was only about a year old, so no more than a few months had gone by) and the outside wound had healed - but his leg was atrophied and the shrapnel was still inside.

My husband, who was volunteering at RCHS at the time, fell in love with the little fella. So we adopted him and brought him home.

Our collie Simone thought he was one of her puppies and immediately took him under her paw.

We took Eddie to a specialist in Cary, NC, who reconstructed his leg and put a metal plate inside so the bone could fuse to it. After his surgery, he ran around and jumped through the doggie doors with his little blue leg splint on. It didn't slow him down.

Here is Eddie playing with our other Jack Russell, Lucy. When Mattie, the foxhound matriarch, steps in to say "cool it, kids" Eddie stops - but Lucy doesn't. Watch her jump over Eddie's head over and over, trying to entice him to play with her. The barking at the end of the clip is Simone, the collie, who protects our house from neighborhood joggers. The others stop to watch the joggers go by.