Cleo’s Story

Particularly because the breed tends to get such a bad rap, I wanted to share with the story of Cleo, a pit bull that we adopted from PARL almost 3 years ago. Our other dog, Trolla (also adopted from PARL many years ago), was getting old and we wanted to get another dog while she was still with us –partly to lessen the blow of losing her, but also so that she could “teach” the new dog how to be as great as she was! We looked online at the dogs available for adoption at PARL, and Cleo’s picture caught my attention. Then I read her profile: adopted and returned, TWICE. Yikes. Seemed like a huge red flag, so we kept looking. A week or so later we stopped into PARL to say hi to the dogs, meet them in person, and again I saw Cleo and I was drawn to her. But then I reread her profile, so we forced ourselves to look at the other dogs. But ultimately we knew the match just wasn’t right with the other dogs, and time and again my husband and I found ourselves talking about Cleo.After multiple additional visits, we decided that Cleo was our girl! Since she had been adopted and returned twice, and we can’t begin to imagine how tough that must have been for her, a trial run was not an option for us. Once we took her home it would be official: she’s ours (for better or worse). The reason she had been returned by both previous owners was because they claimed she was unable to be house trained. We crate trained her from day 1 and she never had an accident! Cleo and Trolla became instant BFFs and they loved to play together. Though Trolla needed to maintain her dominance, she welcomed Cleo into the family with ‘open paws.’

Trolla passed away at the end of last summer, and we were all very sad, especially Cleo. She wasn’t herself for some time, as I think she needed time to adjust to being the only dog in the house, and to process that Trolla wasn’t coming back. Fast forward a few months, she was back to her perky self and back to doing all the things that make her so great: She loves to cuddle, in fact she’s curled up on the couch with me right now as I type this. She is extremely patient with our 21 month old son who is not too terrible to her, but is after all, a toddler. Her favorite ‘game’ to play is tug o’ war with a toy. She’s super sweet to every person she meets, and almost as sweet to every dog she meets. She loves our walks through Pawtuxet Village. She has a couple of quirks like when you give her a dog biscuit she tosses it around the house, pouncing on it as you might imagine a cat would pounce on a mouse. And how she loves a fire in the fireplace so much that she practically climbs in! Cleo has captured our hearts, and we could not ask for a better, sweeter, or gentler companion.

Cleo and Trolla getting to know each other in the back yard the first day we brought Cleo home:

Cleo in her crate – she wasn’t in it long, she graduated from crate training in record time and with flying colors!

Trolla teaching Cleo how to chew a bone (strangely Cleo didn’t know “how” to and it was quite amusing to watch…):

The girls curled up on the couch together:

Even though they each had their own bed, they often cuddled up in one together. This was Cleo’s first Christmas with us:

Cleo with our son, Chase:

The girls with the birthday boy (Trolla had taken a turn for the worse and was very thin):

Chase and Cleo are both obsessed with playing ball:

Play time:

Chase and Cleo, buddies: