This summer we acquired a 10-month-old puppy. Bruno joined our family after we found him on a freeway, while on vacation in Montana. I had always wanted to get a friend for our dog Sassy (an 8-year-old Boxer who was still in puppy mode), but my husband thought I was crazy.

Bruno happens to be the second boxer that I’ve found on a freeway, the first was a white Boxer, that we named Bumper because he had dodged so many cars on Highway 509, before I, nine months pregnant with my son, ran out into the 3 lane road to stop traffic. Though he got along with our dog Ramsay (also a Boxer), with a heavy heart, we found him a home and said goodbye. (after all, we were already about to add a second child to the family)

After finding Bruno, we searched veterinarians offices, put up signs, called the sheriff and the radio station, and had a pet rescue volunteer take care of him for 3 days. Of course I wanted to keep him from the moment I spotted his rail thin body loping across the freeway like a deer, from the moment I hollered at Jason to stop the car so I could walk the side of the road and coax him in, but we were on vacation, he probably had a home and we lived in the city with a small yard.

“We don’t have enough room for two big dogs,” Jason had always said.

I grew up with boxers. My parents have had twelve? Thirteen? More dogs than I can count without pulling out my childhood photo albums. I know they started with Old Prince, the dog my dad brought to the United States from Austria after marrying my mom. And then when I was a kid we had New Prince, Duchess and Madie. The rest of the Boxers came after I left to college. They were rescued from abusive homes, animal shelters and families that couldn’t deal with a Boxer mentality. My parent’s last Boxer, Oscar, has been gone for a couple of years now, so they have to come to our house for their Boxer fix. To the small back yard packed with two happy dogs rolling, jumping, growling, boxing, and loving life. And we, fortunately, are loving life right along with them.

It’s funny how life can lead us down long winding highways…in directions that are just simply, meant to be.