 Cecil's Great Adventure
Cecil’s story was one that we hear way too often. The couple that
owned him were both very career driven People, and once two human
children came along, they found that they no longer had much time
for the family dog. So at age 8, Cecil suddenly found himself
homeless and was surrendered to rescue.
Around the time that Cecil was waiting to be admitted to the WIN
rescue program, Gwen Arthur received a phone call from a woman in
North Dakota who had euthanized her elderly Wheaten, and shortly
thereafter lost her husband to cancer. She was anxious to have some
canine companionship again and Gwen thought that an older dog might
be a good match for her. Cecil immediately came to mind.
I agreed to foster Cecil and to contact Linda in North Dakota to
see if she was interested in adopting him. Without hesitation, she
jumped at the chance to have a Wheaten in her life again.
Cecil’s situation was slightly unusual in that we knew where he
would be placed before he entered into foster care. His surrendering
owners had said that he was a quiet, mellow dog and we felt that his
sojourn as a WIN dog would be a brief one. He still had to be
fostered for at least two weeks so I could evaluate his temperament
first hand, and to allow time to organize a WURL from New Jersey to
North Dakota.
When Cecil came to my home, he was trembling with fear. He
explored the house a little bit and quickly discovered that the bed
in my spare bedroom was a comfortable place to nap. He would come
over to me and request an occasional hug, but for the most part just
wanted to be left alone. Within a few days, however, the requests
for hugs became more frequent. Eventually the requests became
demands, and before I knew it, he was sitting in my lap while I
watched TV in the evenings. He even began to play with my dogs;
15-month-old Rory was determined to play with this newcomer and was
not taking no for an answer. It was truly heartwarming to watch
Cecil come out of his shell and rediscover life’s many pleasures.
I didn’t waste any time in organizing the WURL. Linda was anxious
to adopt Cecil and we all wanted to get him to her before any
inclement weather hit the midwest. WIN had never undertaken such a
long WURL (nearly 1,600 miles in total), but the Blue Boy WURL of
August 2001 had been done between Calverton, New York and Cold
Spring, Minnesota. We were able to use much of the same route and
many of the same participants for Cecil’s WURL.
It took two weekends to complete the WURL. The first weekend got
him as far as Oak Park, Illinois, where he spent five more days in
foster care with Mary Summerfield and her family, before continuing
on to Cold Spring, Minnesota the following weekend. Cold Spring was
the home of Lois Wolf, who had adopted Blue. Cecil spent a night at
her house, which served as the meeting place for Cecil and his new
mom Linda, who drove from Leonard, North Dakota to Cold Spring to
bring her new companion to his forever home.
 It was love at first sight when Linda and Cecil were finally
brought together. There was not a dry eye to be found when Lois
recounted to the rest of the WIN volunteers how this quiet, reserved
Wheaten approached his new guardian and offered her his paw, and
then proceeded to bestow upon her some sloppy Wheaten kisses. It was
immediately obvious that each was going to fill a void in the
other’s life. We all wish Linda and Cecil many years of happiness
together.
Rob Horgan
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Click Here to
view Cecil's WURL Page
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