24/08/2025
James was a year and a half old when we rescued him from the pound. It was an unexpected - but thoughtful and conscious - adoption. We were just going to visit the pound and understand the adoption process and suddenly we had him at home, following us everywhere we looked.
James fell in love and chose us as his owners - at first sight. And we couldn't resist him. He came to our house, suspicious, but even so, despite all the fears we realised he had over time, he showed us on the first night that he was already part of the Family.
That night, when we entered the house with the food, collar, leash, drinking fountains, toys and the like that we'd bought for him, hours after he'd left the kennel... he stood guard over Tiago - who he'd met hours before. In a mixture of nerves and laughter, we looked at each other and had confirmation: he was Family. From then on, we won each other over more every day.
Intelligent, overprotective, he loved to learn, eat, walk on a lead, run and was a real shadow... wherever we were, he was, preferably with his head resting on one of our laps. A cross between a pitt bull and a dalmatian, he was as fearless of what appeared to be greater dangers as he was frightened when we played with him. He never failed us. He never attacked anyone. He never did anything that his instinct to protect (or hunt 😒) didn't scream at him to do.
As he got to know the family and friends, he managed to win over everyone's heart - from the most suspicious (due to fear/unawareness), to those who were afraid of dogs and learnt to trust and enjoy living with him (not least because he also showed them patience and loyalty).
He was with us every day: on holiday, when we were moving house, on weekend getaways, even stays in 5-star hotels.
He would sit, give his paw, stay where we asked, wait for the signal to eat, lie down, touch our hands when we asked, he seemed to understand everything we told him (except when we wanted to stop him from what he had already decided..
(he truly had 200% of the obstinacy of a pitt) (...)
(It goes on on the comments 👇🏽)