Buddy the Rescued Rottweiler

This blog tells the story of Buddy, the rescued Rottweiler. Buddy is the adopted brother of Nikki, who is a tripawd and cancer survivor. Her blog can be found here: http://nikkitherott.tripawds.com

My name is Ted Malone. My wife Mary and I adopted Buddy in November of 2009. Actually, the truth of the matter is that Buddy adopted us (ok, the REAL truth is he adopted Mary. I just happened to go along to provide transportation). We don’t really know how old Buddy is, but our Vet (Dr. Pyne at Banfield) estimates his age anywhere between 3 and 6 years old.

Buddy was abused and neglected. He somehow made his way to the 9 Lives rescue in Colorado Springs, CO. They had him “on display” in front of Petsmart one morning when Mary and I were heading there to buy some dog food. The interesting part of this story is that morning Mary and I had discussed that it was time to get another puppy, since our 8 year old Rottie Nikki would soon be losing one of her legs, and our 1 year old Rottie really needed someone to play with. We had identified a breeder that we were going to contact, and for some reason I hadn’t made the call. As we drove up to Petsmart that morning we saw Buddy out front, and then as we were walking in we both noticed that Buddy was really eyeballing Mary. She walked up to him, he put his paw in her hand, and well, the rest is history. There is absolutely no question in my mind that he picked Mary, as there were tons of people going in and out and looking at the dogs, but Buddy simply locked on to Mary and decided he was going home with us.

Here is a picture of Buddy when he first came into our house:

As time has progressed, Buddy has really integrated himself into our household. He has filled out nicely (When we first got him, he weighed about 55 pounds. He’s close to 85 now and looks like a Rottweiler should) and he’s really starting to show his true personality. All he’s really wanted is for someone to love him, and in our household he’s certainly found that. He is most definitely Mary’s dog, and will follow her everywhere she goes. He has a real interesting habit of sticking his nose in the door to make sure you can’t close it, so it’s always funny to watch Mary try to get out of the house. We were warned by the rescue folks that he suffers from separation anxiety, and while I think that was true at first, now that he knows he has a real home, he’s not so worried when we leave him.

A couple of weeks ago we learned that Buddy has bone cancer. We’re not exactly sure what type it is (we are going to have him evaluated next week) but we do know that it is causing a bulge in his right-hind leg (which is the same leg Nikki had amputated). As we learn more, we will definitely update this page.