We adopted Roswell from a no-kill shelter in Portland in 2013. He was about a year old. He’d been dumped at a county facility in terrible condition. Unaltered. Emaciated. Full of staph infection. And terrified. He snapped at the vet on intake, which is why he was transferred to a no-kill shelter. He was immediately labeled dangerous…and they were right.
The day we met him, he leapt into our arms. He was starving for attention… and desperate to be loved. In almost nine years of constant care, we never found the bottom of that void. He never got enough.
We sold our house in Portland to buy land in Washington…just for Roswell. He needed space and
security. Odd Man Inn happened incrementally around him over the years, and when it grew too large for Roswell, we bought him another house in Tennessee. He had his own private space…no guests…no hassle.
Rozzer was so difficult. His fear of the unknown made him crazy…so we had to control every little thing. We tried to teach him to trust over the years, but it never happened. He couldn’t. And so we were his people…and that was enough for him. We never quit on him. Not once. He taught us how to love him, and we did that HIS way.
Roswell is the reason we went down this track to start a home for animals who are abandoned, discarded, exploited, and abused. He was patient zero for every life that came after him. He was a classic “lifetime” shelter dog who scored an actual family…a big beautiful biting black lab with a square head and fully webbed feet. A sleek black coat and very pearly teeth. He died having received every single thing we had to offer him. Vet care. Vaccines. Flea control. Belly rubs. Good food. A safe home. And a family.
Roswell’s windchimes, which hang proudly in the heart of Solsbury Hill, are a memorial to the dog who was truly the beginning of Odd Man Inn.
