After living with two for more than a decade, stray dogs will always be special to our family.
Friends from Temecula gave us the first one, Smiley, in 1995. She was from the local shelter at the time, Lake Elsinore Animal Friends, or LEAF The family had been told that her puppies were taken from Smiley and euthanized. The things we do are what we call our “best friends.”
My wife Joanne rescued the second outcast, Happy, in 2001 from busy Whitewood Road in Murrieta. No doubt she was either going to be killed by traffic or scooped up by animal control. We theorized she’d been dumped by her previous owners, given how ornery she was. Sometimes you have to be a saint to deal with a pet.
Then there are the folks who do this angelic work for a living, Animal Friends of the Valleys, successors to LEAF
The groups have been providing shelter services to southwest Riverside County since 1987. The area now has a population of about 500,000 — easily five times what it was 36 years ago.
