A Pup That Started It All

I Adopted Axel from the SPCA of Wake County in Raleigh, NC in April of 2020. I was an ICU nurse and the COVID pandemic was just starting it become real. I had two weeks off and had been waiting for the perfect time to adopt a dog. I had been searching on petfinder.com and all the local dog shelters when the I saw him on the SPCA website- he was perfect, so I put in my application immediately. Because of COVID the SPCA was doing online videos that they called their adoption network. They went into Axel’s room- he got scared of the door closing and was shy, but interested. Once I got the call to come look at him, I knew I was going to take him home. I couldn’t go inside, but they let him run around in a little yard and I said, “Yep, he’s coming home with me”. So April 17th became his adoption day. We spent the next couple months in our COVID lockdown together- some days were harder than others. Axel was dropped off at the shelter at what they thought was about 2 years old, but I didn't have any other information than that. My guess is that his previous owner didn’t train him, then he got too big and was too much trouble. We worked hard to become a great pup- I’m not sure he'd had ever heard the word “no” before. We went on 3 walks a day because all the dog parks were closed during COVID. Then slowly as the world started to open again, did e-collar training with Sit Means Sit twice a week and spent every morning at the dog park with our same early morning crew of dogs that played perfectly together.

Soon I decided I wanted to do travel nursing and, of course, knew Axel would come with me. We went to Virginia, drove all the way cross country to California, and then back to North Carolina. We found a love for hiking and National Parks during this time and continue to do these things together to this day. This Blog and our instagram, Axel.theadventurepup, are our way of sharing the things we love to do with others so they can find things they enjoy too- especially with their dogs.