After meeting Wanda and her husband in their home, you can see right away that they are dog LOVERS. They were amazing with Zoe! She was well cared for and made new friends ? I will definitely be requesting her as a sitter for Zoe again. Thank you so much Wanda!

Dog Tailz – I have decided to refer to our experiences with Wanda’s care of Juno as “Dog Tailz” (Tales - get it?) because every time I don’t think the story can get any stranger... it does. So this time I dropped Juno off at Wanda’s Doggie Love-fest and Juno (a healthy woke female) began joyously playing with Wanda’s two handsome male labs. There must be something going on because she almost knocks me down when we go to Wanda’s with her trying to get in the door. It’s just weird. You know how, when you take your dog to the vet, their legs start shaking? They pant, they get that pleading look in their eyes, and their legs go crossed as they run in the opposite direction? That isn’t Juno at Wanda’s. She gets the same look but takes me to Wanda’s - in a hurry. In fact, she was so happy she was there, she jumped all almost 90 pounds of herself from the back seat to the front seat trying to get out the window to get there before I could. The girl has no dignity when we go there. It’s shameful! Anyway, I dropped her off with her tattered favorite dog toy (which Wanda bought for her), and her other stuff and she was so excited! I’m excited when I drop her off too! It’s freedom! It’s like when you find a good sitter for your kid so you and your partner can actually go have carefree fun, you know! It isn’t that you don’t love your child... you just need a break. Wanda is our break. So here my wife and I are much later, up in the mountains, in a cabin, and we get a message on the “Rover Phone” from Wanda. Bad news. Juno has shaken her head so much (we think from groomer water in the ear) she has ruptured a blood vessel in the flappy part of her ear and now it is swollen like a balloon! Florence Nightin-Wanda (Nightingale) not only reports the crisis but also sends comparative pictures of Juno’s left and right ears along with a medical diagnosis that this requires a trip to the vet. What? We are almost a thousand miles away, in a cabin, in the mountains, in freezing rain, where the only way down the mountain is an iced-up single-lane road at a 71 degree slope. It ain’t gonna happen. So then Florence Nightin-Wanda turns into “Wonder Woman Wanda” and says she’ll just take our dog to the vet – like it is something she does every day. What? My wife sends her the info and Wanda makes the arrangements and she takes Juno to Juno’s vet who proceeds to treat her ears, bandage her up, and schedules her for surgery as soon as we get back. Wanda then sends us pics of Juno with her head all wrapped up and taken care of. It was incredible to us she cared that much. After we got back in town, I went to pick Juno up, and Juno met me at the door with this guilty look on her face for causing so much trouble. Wanda gave me the paperwork, told me how concerned she was, and made me promise to give her an update as soon as Juno was done at the vet’s. Then she proceeded to give me Juno’s toy all sewed up! Wanda sewed Juno’s toy up and it looked great! She gave me all the rest of Juno’s things, I got that and Juno loaded into the truck, and then I went back to thank her and offer her something extra for her extra trouble. She refused and said something superhero-like, “It’s all in a good day’s work. I would want anyone else to do the same for one of my dogs if it happened to them.” I checked behind her for a Wonder Woman Wanda flying cape or something and didn’t spot anything. Then – this really happened - she presented me with two thick slices of homemade banana nut bread! No kidding – fresh and with a smile! The woman (and her husband – a great team) cared for our dog, sewed up her toy, handled a vet crisis, and shared homemade goodies. Where in the hell do people like this come from? For a moment I had to check myself. I mean... I’m old. I could have been having a stroke, I could have been under the influence of some kind of substance... maybe I fell and hit my head and all of this was some kind of weird dream I was having while laying in an ER someplace. No. It’s just what happens when you have Wanda for a sitter. So that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. In Orange City there is a strange place where people actually care and prove it every time you take your family member to them for a while. It is stuff like this, and people like this, that affirms the fact there is hope for all of us regardless of what the news says. We just have to know and have the right people in our lives. Wanda and her family are some of those people. Until next time and next Dog Tailz, we are, Sincerely grateful, Kathy and Mike