Damona has found her way into many hearts and homes along the way.

Damona's rescue story began on Valentine's day 2004, when her owners turned her over to the shelter at the age of 7. They said they had housebreaking issues with her and otherwise no reason was given. Unfortunately, Damona's bouncing wasn't done. Despite the foster homes hard work on crate training her and housebreaking her (often these two things go very well together), two homes made promises to follow through on the training.. and both did not continue as instructed. And so she was turned back over to rescue.

However, it was on February 27, 2005 that Damona struck gold when she found her home with Joe. After following rescues training instructions on housebreaking it wasn't long before Damona was free and clear of those housebreaking issues that had her bouncing from home to home.

And for many years Damona and Joe lived hapily together. Joe took good care of Damona including when she was diagnosed wtih diabetes and later cataracts. Sadly, we received word from Joe that he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. His only hope and wish was that Damona was well cared for. A foster home came forward and reassured Joe that they would provide Damona a foster home when he was ready. A few weeks later, they came to Joe’s house on a Saturday morning (July 26th, 2008) and took her home to live with them and their two handsome males huskies. Joe passed away that Monday night and went to the Rainbow Bridge to wait for Damona. It was almost as though he held on until he could be sure that she was going to a good home before allowing himself to go to his heavenly reward.

Damona was safe in foster care and welcome to live out her years there. While in foster care she met lots of people at events. She even made a few school visits as well! One day she even made an impression on one young child as her foster dad explains:

Events can not only make a huge difference in a dog’s life, but in yours as well. The day we were invited to speak to the fourth grade class in Yardley, PA that was studying the Iditarod, one of the teachers invited us to also visit a class of autistic children. When we walked into the room, I had Damona on her leash and there was a little boy, maybe about 6 or 7 years old, sitting on a chair in the corner. One of the teachers explained to us that he was severely autistic and very rarely moved or spoke but just sat and observed what was going on. Well, after a few minutes, he got up off his chair, walked over to me and asked, “What’s your name?”

Somewhat taken by surprise, I replied, “I’m Bob, and this is Damona.” He reached down to pet her and she licked his hand ever so gently. He actually smiled, so I handed him her leash just to see what he would do. What happened next amazed everyone.

He walked around the room from child to child saying, “This is Damona. This is Damona.” The teachers were standing there with their mouths hanging open because they had never seen this child do anything like this. When he finished introducing Damona to everyone, he brought her back to me, handed me her leash, said, “Thank you,” and returned to his chair. It was all I could do to keep from breaking into tears.

Did we make a dime from this event? Nope. Did we make a difference in that little boy’s life? You bet. Did he make a difference in mine? You had better believe it. Was it worth the hour’s drive each way and the two hours we spent there? If you have to ask, I’m sorry.

I have been going to events since TOTTSHR was founded in 2000 and have no idea how many people I have talked to, how many hours I have spent, how many miles I have driven or how many dogs I have helped save, but I can tell you for sure that it was all worth it.

Damona continued to work her magic with others while in foster care, just waiting for the next journey to a place she could call home.

On August 19th that call came. A past adopter, who adopted Brahms in 2005 inquired about Damona. They wanted a "laid back" older female to be a companion for Brahms and willing to take on a "special needs" dog.

On August 29th, Damona met her new family. Her foster family wrote:

Damona found her forever home today with Nate and Barbara Anne in Lititz, PA. They adopted Brahms from us about 4 years ago and he was absolutely thrilled to meet her. When we left, Damona was following Barbara Anne and Brahms around as though she had lived there all her life. We are quite sure that everyone will be very happy although we will miss our little angel.