THE BEST GUY IN THE WORLD

From the very start, our rescue pup sensed what we needed from him.

- LAUREN IANNOTTI

WE GOT OUR handsome mutt, Rusty, eight years ago. I'd found him on Petfinder, a site that matches rescue animals and humans. (If you haven't heard of it, beware. It is a time suck and may lead you to adopting an animal you didn't know you needed. Ahem.) He was being fostered after he'd been found in a box in a parking lot in Arkansas. A rescue transport brought him and other dogs up for rehoming in the Northeast. It was a rainy October night when my family and I met the bus. We'd told our older daughter, then 8, that we were meeting friends. Despite the fact that we were at a park-and-ride off I-95 in Connecticut on a Friday night, and there was a crate in the trunk, and I'd asked her to hold the leash and collar I brought, as she and I approached the small crowd outside the bus, she was still buying the "friends" story. The driver came out with our little guy and said, "Who's for Scruffy?" using the name his foster family had given him. I stepped forward and Sophia suddenly understood, and her face showed her surprise and joy. "You've got a cute one," the woman said. She passed him to me, and Rusty was ours.