I need to start by saying that I mean NO disrespect with the title to this story!!!  These terms of endearment for my two rescued shelties help provide a "mind's eye" picture of their personalities.  That said, here is their story...

I relocated with my job back to St. Louis last year after several years in a high rise apartment in downtown Chicago...no dogs allowed.  After settling into my new home here and after much consideration, I decided to get a dog.  I had originally made up my mind that I wanted a chocolate brown lab.  After a Thanksgiving weekend at my home with my cousin, his wife, their two small children AND a full grown black lab, I quickly decided to choose a smaller breed!  I'm still having flashbacks of Gracie's tail WACKING everything in sight that weekend!

In January of this year, I heard about Dixie, a small Sheltie recently rescued and looking for a home.  After seeing her picture on line and instantly falling for her, I put in an application to adopt her.  Through the course of my phone interviews with Janice Mitchell and Tracy Buck and based on my work schedule, I decided I wanted not one, but two dogs...to be each other's companion during my long hours away from home.  Both Janice and Tracy agreed, but felt Dixie should not be one of the pair.  Instead, I was introduced to "Maggie" and "Muffin", part of the "Springfield Five" rescued in January of this year in Springfield, MO...my Thelma and Louise...my "trainwreck" and "headcase".

Thelma, if she were human, would be a beer drinking, cigarette smoking, party girl with bad skin and half her teeth missing...but the life of every party!  Everybody knows her...everybody loves her!  She had DEFINITELY been around the block MORE than a few times!  Believed to be a puppy mill "mom", she came to me with a terrible skin condition, bald feet from a yeast infection gone wild, not to mention several bald spots on her back...what I call, with affection, her "comb overs".  She was smelly, greasy and overweight.  What a mess!!  What a trainwreck!!  Who knows what kind of life she must have endured!  Amazingly, when I first met Thelma, she was SO full of life.  Wagging her tail, actually her entire backside, she was as energetic as a puppy even though she is believed to be at least 6 years old.  Upon seeing her, my first thought was,  "I MUST take this poor, old girl and give her the home she deserves.  I want to bring out the beauty queen in this ugly duckling."  There was so much wisdom in her soulful, old eyes and a story behind them that I will never know.

Louise, on the other hand, was the prettiest dog I had ever seen! Absolutely gorgeous, but shaking from head to toe and backed into a corner when I first met her.  A real headcase!!  Tracy watched Louise as she cautiously came up to sniff me during that first meeting and then quickly run away.  She was so frightened of humans, yet continued to sit in her corner staring up at me and trembling during the rest of the visit.  I HAD to have her!  I knew that in time, Louise would come to trust me.

In February, Thelma and Louise were delivered to my home by Tracy.  I kept a journal of their daily progress for the first several weeks.  In my first entry, I wrote that I couldn't wait for the day that Louise would wag her tail; which was down between her legs, obviously fearful of me and her new home.  Thelma had no trouble settling in, but had serious medical issues to overcome....

....It is now a beautiful June day.  Thelma and Louise are outside on the deck in my backyard taking a sun bath.  After four months of medication, Thelma's feet are no longer bald and both her skin condition and yeast infection have subsided.  She is as healthy and happy as ever.  She still has her "comb overs" and missing teeth but is no longer the greasy, smelly and sick dog that she was.  In fact, my tired, old trainwreck looks pretty darned good!  She'll never win a beauty contest...well maybe Miss Congeniality, but she sure looks beautiful to me. Louise is slowly becoming a new dog!  My little headcase still approaches life with great caution, but now sits in my lap,  licks me, loves to get brushed and bathed and doesn't hide when visitors are at the house.  Each day is a new adventure in survival for her.  She has finally realized that when I drop a fork or a car door slams, she is going to survive.  She has finally learned that no harm will come to her when she leaves the safety of her crate.  She is relaxing a little more each day as she learns to trust people again.  She seems to understand that she now has a warm, dry, safe bed to sleep in each night and a full stomach each day.  And just last week, I watched in amazement, as she ran, with great abandon, in my backyard wagging her tail.

Thelma and Louise...the trainwreck and the headcase...their horrible, cruel, past lives took them to the edge of the cliff but, unlike their namesakes from the movie, these girls have been pulled back from that edge and they won't need to drive off of it to find a better life!