My husband and I first contacted ABR in 2007 when we adopted Mikey. My husband’s father had a Brittany when he was young and told stories about how great of a dog he was. After reading about the breed, we knew we didn’t have to look any further. We had our eye on a dog named Jasper that was being fostered in Omaha. By the time we filled out our application, Jasper had been adopted but his brother, Mikey came over for a visit to our home. We were hooked! For the last 12 years Mikey has been more than a great dog.
We started thinking about adopting another dog because our oldest dog, Lily (West Highland White Terrier), turned 15 years old and started having fainting spells. She is doing great now but is on 4 heart medications to keep her active. Mikey is very attached to Lily. When they have gone to dog daycare, he does not want to be separated from her. Even as a “big dog” he is always placed in with the little dogs to keep an eye on her. We worried that if Lily passed, he would be heartbroken. We knew that we wanted another Brittany. We watched the ABR site for months before deciding to put in our application. To our delight, Harlan and Nancy Vogel (who helped us adopt Mikey in 2007), called us and came for our home visit. They knew that Yako might be the dog that we were looking for.
Yako from Spain is a phenomenal dog. He fit in with our family from the moment we picked him up. We met Becki in Clear Lake and when we put Yako in the back of our Jeep Wrangler he almost immediately climbed over the seat and curled up next to our 2 kids. He was perfect in the car ride (even with the kids had food in their hands). My husband and I kept looking at each wondering how he could be so perfectly mannered!
He immediately fit in with our other 2 dogs, Mikey and Lily when he arrived at our home. And even better, our kids just adore him. I think the day after he arrived home, the entire neighborhood stopped by to meet him – well all of the kids at least. He was the perfect gentleman.
Yako hasn’t been on too many road trips with us yet but he did visit our daughter’s softball game in the fall. He sat and watched everyone come and go and again, couldn’t have been any better behaved. He will definitely be attending more games (once it starts to warm up and we can get rid of all the snow!).
He sleeps with our daughter most nights and is quite attached to the females in our house. He is a drooler and a sloppy drinker but we couldn’t imagine our house without him.
Thank you for all that the ABR does.
Brett, Shannon, Alexa and Zack Taylor (with Lily, Mikey and Yako), Nebraska