Animal Welfare League of Charlotte County Third Annual Auction

Zero came to us from the Charlotte County Animal Shelter (a wonderful organization). He is a cross between a basset and a lab. He looks just like a lab with short legs.

While running on Venice Beach, a friend of my husbands', found a little dog. She brought him home and called us and asked us if we wanted a Jack Russell Terrier. We had discussed getting a dog a few months earlier so we told her we would come get him. We brought him home got him a collar, leash, dog food and bowls. I started thinking about where he was found and wondering if he was just lost and not abandon. I called all of the local shelters and gave them a description of the dog. They had no report of a missing dog fitting my description. They took my name and phone number down and said they would call me if they get any reports that fit that description.

I then placed an ad in the local paper trying to locate the dogs owner. After having him for about a week we a got call from the Englewood Animal Shelter saying that they had someone call in that had a missing Jack Russell Terrier. We called the animal shelter and got the number of the person who called in.

We had really become attached to him and so had the kids, but we made the call. We called the number and a young guy picked up on the other end and said I can't believe you found my Pete. He was surprised to hear that Pete was at our home in North Port since Venice is about 15 miles away. We explained how we ended up with him and he was very grateful that we took him in.

When we got off the phone we looked at Pete and called his name and he immediately came running. We knew then that we had found his owner.

The next morning we met Pete's owner at the 7-Eleven in Venice and handed him over his dog.

We were all sad to see him go, especially our 2 year old and 7 year old girls. My husbands birthday was coming up the next week and I thought what a great present it would be to go to the local shelter and have the kids pick out a new dog.

Willow, our 2 year old at the time, went with me to pick out the new dog and her older sister was in school. We got to the shelter and began walking up and down the rows of dogs. Willow stopped in front the cage of the most odd looking dog. He was all white with brown speckles on his ears. He looked just like a Labrador but his legs were short like a basset. He looked kind of like something you would see in a Dr. Seuss book. She stuck her hand through the hole in the chain link cage and the dog began licking her.

We asked to take the dog out for a run and Willow and the dog got along great. We had found our dog!

My husband and older daughter were a bit surprised when we showed up with this strange looking white pup, but they were both overjoyed that we found a new Pete.

Then came the process of naming him, right off the bat he seemed a little lacking in the brain department, so we came up with the name Zero. In short meaning zero IQ.

Here's Zero and Iris, my littlest one, taking a siesta on the couch this afternoon.