We love our furry family members, and we bet you do, too. In honor of our annual men’s issue, we invited a few local guys to introduce us to their favorite four-legged friends.
Alberto Rullan and Xylazine
Please tell us the story of how you and your dog met, or how he/she became part of your family.
Xylazine is a Catahula mix who was rescued by a friend of our family several years ago. She went to live at our clinic and quickly became the mascot of our equine hospital, Performance Equine. Due to her past, probably an abusive one, she has always been very shy and skeptical of new people; but that did not stop the human-animal bond my brother and I developed with her at the farm. She was starting to come out of her shell when she came too close to a truck tire and got run over. The truck driver immediately got out to help her and to everyone’s surprise Xylazine got up and started running around and then kept running. She was such a brave soul but I knew she was scared and probably hurting. We all searched for her and several hours later she came back home to the clinic. I immediately took her to my house and, after taking x-rays of her whole body, miraculously she did not have any broken bones. My family and I took care of her as she recovered, then we decided she was a wonderful companion for the kids and an amazing watchdog for the family. These days she rules our house and is the alpha dog who supervises our other two dogs, Blue and Henry, while knowing her real job is to protect the family.
Do you and your dog have a favorite activity you enjoy doing together?
We love hanging out together. She loves sitting on the couch and spending time with her family.
Please share a brief story or example of why your dog is truly “Man’s Best Friend.”
Despite her previous abuse by “man” when she was a puppy and the fact that she was run over by a car driven by a “man,” Xylazine continues to come to man, love man and be protective of man. In our house, she can differentiate who are “her people” versus who is not. She becomes quite protective of the household, but once she realizes visitors are friends of the family, they also become her friends and she will protect them as well. That is pure love!
