Del was a rescue puppy from Costa Rica, where Helene Wirt, a wonderful lady from Austria, operates a rescue kennel – Dogland – in the mountains outside of San Ramon. She found Del on the streets of San Miguel shortly before my wife and I visited Dogland in search of a puppy, in 2014.
Janie and I had been in Costa Rica for two years, and for Mother’s Day, I wanted something special for her. I’ll never forget her asking me, “How will we know if it is the right dog?” I told her we were not going to pick out a dog, the right dog would find us.
Helene keeps around 230 dogs at Dogland at any given time, and all of them are craving attention. Inside one of Dogland’s larger pens, I sat at one of five or six concrete tables that dot the yard. The dogs swamped me. They were on the table behind me, pushing to get around in front of me to be petted.
