Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

What is your favorite animal?

I was a cat person my entire life, and had owned multiple Persian cats for decades, until a Catholic nun needed to rehome her beloved 4-year-old dog in 2011. Mutual friends—who knew how badly I had always wanted a Westie (to mark my mother’s Scottish heritage)—connected me with Sister Marie, after telling us that her dog was a two-year-old WESTIE.

Truth be told, my husband was not in favor of getting a dog. We had never owned a dog before. We had an aging Persian cat who wasn’t the friendliest and was very used to being the solo pet. But I kept working on him and he agreed to think about it. He knew how badly I wanted a Westie.

We arranged a meeting, and from the first minute I saw him, jumping up and down, barking excitedly at a full-length window as we approached the front door, I knew he wasn’t a Westie. My heart sank a bit…until the door opened and he pranced around us. He had “rascal” written all over him. Then we found out his name was Puccini, and my opera loving husband caved in.

Puccini was a great dog, a real character with tons of personality. He turned us into dog people in short time. He was very endearing and earned all sorts of nicknames from our family. He lived through Covid with three of us at home 24/7 and he loved the extra attention and snuggles. He was also unpredictable as to his house training abilities. As he got older, that unsavory part of his personality worsened. He also was a picky eater, and as he aged and slowed down, so did his appetite, such as it was. But we loved him with all our hearts and were devastated when he died on October 31, 2022, at the age of 16-1/2 years old, with us for 12 years.

After a year or so I brought up the possibility of getting another dog. My husband was not a fan of the idea, knowing how having a dog had tied us down and made travel difficult, particularly since we hated leaving him with friends where he may have multiple accidents in their homes. And, as Puccini got older and health problems increased, having a dog was a financial consideration as well. But I was determined to one day have a Westie of my own.

So, I turned to the internet and filed applications to foster and/or adopt a Westie through two different organizations. I read aloud to my husband many, many posts about Westies needing a new home, and the answer was always, “lets wait a bit longer.”

In 2024, we both retired, and I restarted my Westie campaign in earnest. But, we both wanted to travel a bit, so I agreed to wait until after Christmas of 2025.

The week before Christmas 2025, I received an email from one of the rescue groups that started like this, “He’s not a Westie but …” The description that followed was full of positives, with “housebroken and in good health” jumping out at me. As I scrolled down the email I saw two photos of this Yorkie, and my dream of a Westie once again went flying out the window!

My husband is a man of his word, and so I contacted the rescue group. We agreed to meet, perhaps foster to adopt, and make a decision as soon as possible.

Cody came to us on New Year’s Eve morning, around 11:00 AM, and he was so adorable! He was also a nervous wreck, having lived a quiet life with his owner who we assume was elderly and had become too ill to take care of him. He had been well-cared for, though, which his vet records indicate, and he was regularly groomed. It took two days for him to decompress and come out of his crate to explore and sniff us, and by day three he was letting our daughter, staying with us for the holidays, pet him and put him on the sofa by her.

It has been two weeks as of yesterday, and he is more used to the normal sounds of our household. He no longer barks at the fridge/icemaker clicking through its cycles, or each and every time one of us gets up to go to the kitchen or some other room of the house. Every day he is more relaxed and we see a bit more of his personality shining through.

He is a very good dog, though, and in some ways, he is such an easier dog than Puccini ever was. He is 100% housebroken, zero accidents since he was dropped off to a strange house with three total strangers. He eats well (a bit too well as he is a bit overweight for his breed).

He sleeps through the night, in our bed, albeit taking up far more real estate than his size would indicate, but so did Puccini, and we just rolled with it. He has made friends with our good friends’ Golden retriever, and recently met a neighbor’s cat with absolutely no stress at all.

While it is true that having a dog will impact our travel plans, and given his age, we expect health issues to pop up earlier than if we had adopted a younger dog, we are so happy to have added sweet Cody to our family. And, we are so grateful to the people who work so hard to place rescue dogs in good homes to give them a new chance at life! And, while he is most clearly not a Westie, this little guy has stolen our hearts!