Once upon a time, a puppy was found all alone in a storm drain in East St. Louis. He had severe sarcoptic mange and was missing a lot of his fur. In June of last year, Gateway Pet Guardians rescued the pup and got him started on treatment for mange. He also contracted the deadly parvo disease, but fought it off with the love and diligent care of his foster parents at the time.
At the end of the summer, Robyn Gummersheimer was browsing the internet. Going through social media, she kept seeing a big-eared pup pop up, and she was desperate to meet him. She was going through a separation at the time and was dealing with the emotional turmoil of a relationship that had ended poorly, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the German shepherd-terrier mix and his huge ears.
“I’m mesmerized by his ears,” she says. “I have two other pointy-eared dogs, and I knew I wanted to go see him.”
When she did, the dog was “so playful and clumsy” that she knew she had to take him. Gummersheimer named the pup Titus and brought him home to join her other two dogs, an 11-year-old shiba inu named Cali and a 4-year-old Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix named Dexter.
“They didn’t like him at first, since he’s a bundle of energy,” she says. “Dexter is the tiniest and runs the house. Sometimes I’ll catch him and Titus playing, where Titus will drag Dexter around by a rope. Dexter thinks he’s winning, but Titus is being gentle with him.”
While her older dogs weren’t so sure of the puppy at first, Gummersheimer was.
“He came out of something [difficult] and kept fighting,” Gummersheimer says. “That was one of our instant connections.”
Having a puppy hasn’t been an easy task, though. Titus is quite a jumper, and Gummersheimer says he truly doesn’t understand how big he is.
“He thinks he’s so small,” she says. “He’ll jump on the couch and try to lay in my lap. I’ve never had a 60-pound lap dog before.”
Titus’ other habits include annoying his adoptive four-legged siblings and stealing socks out of the laundry basket.
Although his puppy stage can be a lot to handle, Gummersheimer says Titus has been a huge blessing since he came into her life.
“He yearns for my acknowledgement,” she says. “He truly lets me know he loves me.”
This story was originally published at laduenews.com. Read it on LN’s website here.
Robyn Elizabeth Dexter 