Tank and Baron are Adopted!

Tank and Baron are Adopted!  Well, Tank was actually adopted almost a year ago, but his new mom asked us to wait to announce it.  Abbie found out shortly after adopting Tank (now Hank), that he had heart-worm, which is very rare in Southern California. Abbie and Jim were committed to Hank and saw him through the treatment, and recently added another young GSP from the Rescue, Baron, who will be called Cooper! Our many, many thanks to Abbie and Jim for being Hank's guardian angels, for adopting Baron, and for writing the following for us to share with you:In March of 2014, we adopted a big pointer named Tank from the GSP Rescue. I had been looking at him in the pictures of available dogs, and immediately asked about him when our beloved GSP, Ed, died of osteosarcoma.My way of dealing with grief over the death of a dog is to rescue another. It works for us, and it has worked for several dogs over the years. We get them, and love them, and spoil them rotten, until they pass of the diseases of old age in their teens. The dog we had the longest was a terrier mix we adopted in New York before we moved out here, and she lived to be 17. But that only was because she was too mean to die.Anyway, I had been looking at Tank for a while, and fell in love with him the first time I saw him. Thanks to his calm demeanor, he was okay with my cranky Rhodesian mix, Buster, as well. We took him home, and renamed him Hank. But when I took him to my vet for his introductory checkup, we discovered that he had heart-worms and had to go to a specialist, a cardiologist, to get rid of them. Cases of heart-worms are rare in Southern California, so no one really checks for them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and he had a full-blown case.So I wouldn’t let the GSP Rescue tell you that he had been adopted until I was sure that he wasn’t going to die from the treatment he had to go through to get rid of the worms. Imagine this: a large, athletic pointer getting what is similar to chemotherapy and being crated and only allowed to walk slowly through the yard for a couple of months because too much activity could cause the dying worms to break off and migrate to his lungs and cause an embolism and kill him.In January of 2015, almost a year later, we had our last ultrasound of his heart, and his last blood test, which showed no worms in his blood. He’s okay now. And he gets lots of exercise. At our house in Los Angeles he runs in the mountains twice a day. At our house at the beach he runs in the mountains, he runs at the beach, and he runs next to my bike for five or six miles every day. The cardiologist at our last appointment, marveled at how strong and healthy he is. She smiled at me and said, “He is a very lucky boy.”Lucky, and happy. He is a happy, happy boy. And we love, love him.Such a beautiful story of love and devotion... Tank and Baron hit the jackpot!  Enjoy your lives boys!