Jesse James

Your Pet's Rescue Story
We rescued Jesse from the Pet Alliance. About six months prior to this my devoted four-legged friend, Shadow, died from cancer. Normally, we adopted special needs dogs, ones with medical problems who no one else wanted. It was a running joke with my vet that I wouldn't know what to do if I ever adopted a healthy dog.

I decided to prove him wrong by adopting the incredibly beautiful but quite rambunctious Jesse James. He is a purebred Maltese and as you can see, he clearly loves his picture taken.

When I rescued Jesse, his owner told the Pet Alliance he was a year and a half. After we got him home, I wanted to rename him. My husband kept calling him Jesse. I told him I could not possibly name a dog, Jesse James. However it was apparent after only a week the name was quite appropriate. Jesse is a bit of a terror.

Over the first six months of Jesse's life with us, he aged rapidly. First, I noticed a problem with this hind legs. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong, I just knew there was something wrong. He didn't seem to have a problem running or jumping, so I questioned my intuition about whether there really was an issue. I took him to the vet anyway. Thus, we discovered he had knee displasure and my vet said he definitely wasn't a year and a half. He was much older.

We then had trouble with his weight. My vet kept lecturing me on not feeding him treats. I looked at him a little askance and said really, since when have any of my dogs ever had a weight problem. We tested Jesse and he has hypothyroidism. He is a full breed Maltese, but we believe he came from a puppy mill and his owner gave him up when he started presenting medical problems. In the end, we figured his age at around seven years. My vet just smiled and said he was lucky he ended up with us.

So Jesse doesn't have to worry any more about anything, which is why he looks so angelic, he's on a diet and medication for his hypothyroidism and he takes medication to help with the pain in his hind legs.

And you can tell by his name, his physical problems don't keep him down. His favorite pastime is rolling in mud puddles at the local doggie park and tearing apart his brother's stuffed animals. Its a good thing for the both of us there is a dog bath establishment across the street and stuffed animals are easily replaced. In his leisure, Jesse loves television and can spot any animal on the screen, even one made of paper. So don't let his angelic look fool you. He's probably planning his next adventure. Since his adoption, my husband passed away from cancer and I'm forever grateful he convinced me to adopt Jesse.