Rescue Dog - Jojo

Is this not the cutest dog in the world? Mr. Winks or Jack (as in "one-eyed") or maybe Matey would have worked, but his name is Jojo. He is a rescue dog and he was already named when we got him.

With most rescue dogs, there is no back story. Jojo's back story starts at a Sheetz gas station where a woman involved with rescue saw him in a dog cage by the entrance. She took the time to sit with him for a half an hour or so until she was certain no one was returning for him.

These first three photos were taken after Jojo got a bath.

She took him to my favorite rescue, Potomac Valley Pekingese Rescue, which operates mainly in Virginia Beach and Richmond, Virginia. They can be found on the web at: http://www.potomacpekes.org/

This AKC dog bed has been Jojo approved.

When we first adopted Jojo, one of his eyes had been damaged. We are not sure how. Pekingese are a breed that have very shallow eye orbits and, unfortunately, it is not difficult to accidentally displace an eye. Although he was blind in that eye, he looked fairly normal at a glance because the eye remained the same color. But, about a year ago, it started going through some changes we were concerned about and we ended up taking him to a pet ophthalmologist. Believe it or not, there are such specialists and it turned out we had a good one just a few miles from where we live. He removed the damaged eye, replacing it with an artificial "eyeball." Replacing it with an artificial one was an option which I'm glad we chose. The "eyeball" keeps the lid from looking sunken in, so it just looks like Jojo is winking at you. In fact, I was talking to a neighbor one day while walking Jojo and, after glancing at him several times, he asked why Jojo winked so much.

When we put up our small Christmas tree last year, we erected it on a small table using one of Jojo's blankets as a skirt. Jojo loves his blankets and he let us know he thought we made a poor choice.

A funny thing about Pekingese is they feel like they have to throw their head straight up in the air to bark. Even at that, jojo cannot generate any volume. He could bark all day and it wouldn't bother the neighbors.

Jojo recovered nicely from his surgery and lives a pretty normal life with one eye. I have had dogs for most of my life. The only thing I regret is that we had just one at a time. Dogs are very social animals and I think they enjoy being around others of their kind, even when they don't seem to. It wasn't until we adopted Jojo that I acted upon it and we adopted a second dog so that he could have someone of his own kind with which to interact. Her name is Annabelle and she is the subject of tomorrow's blog.