If you’ve attended an Austin fes­ti­val or dog event in the past few years, chances are you’ve seen Dori, a brindle-pied French Bull­dog, hap­pily sit­ting in her cart, maybe with a dog friend or two, being pushed by her owner. If you’ve seen Dori walk­ing, you may notice her gait is a bit dif­fer­ent from other Frenchies because she’s a tri­pod. That is, she has three, not four legs.

Dori is a suc­cess story of a throw-away dog. Dori had been shot in the leg and her own­ers decided it was bet­ter to euth­a­nize rather than ampu­tate once they heard the leg couldn’t be saved. A mem­ber of Blue Dog Res­cue was on the vet­eri­nar­ian staff that day. He saw Dori’s poten­tial as a per­fectly fine pet, sans the leg. He asked if they would release her to the care of Blue Dog Res­cue and, for­tu­nately, the own­ers agreed. Blue Dog Res­cue paid to ampu­tate her leg, then fos­tered her to recov­ery (all BDR dogs are fos­tered in home envi­ron­ments), and found her a per­ma­nent new home.

Flash for­ward a few happy years to Dori attend­ing the Dog­to­ber­fest this past week­end, cel­e­brat­ing the 10-year anniver­sary of her favorite ani­mal res­cue, Blue Dog Res­cue. News 8 Austin was in atten­dance and guess who caught their eye? Yup. Miss Dori! Read more of her story and see the clip fea­tur­ing Dori below.

Dori at Dogtoberfest

This isn’t the first time Dori has been on the small screen. She had a sig­nif­i­cant part in a Zack Anner short film. (Don’t think it has been posted to the inter­net though.)

Mighty Texas Dog Walk 2010
One place you can usu­ally find Dori is at the Mighty Texas Dog Walk. We are rather fond of this photo taken this past spring at the 2010 Walk. That’s Dori on the left, our Cocoa shame­lessly hog­ging the spot­light in the mid­dle, and their friend Bond on the right, (unsuc­cess­fully putting a move on Cocoa). All are joy rid­ing to the next water sta­tion in Dori’s cart and delight­ing in the day, as only a Frenchie can.

If you see Dori at your next event, be sure to stop by and say “Hi.” She’s a sweet, happy, and very lucky girl. Watch­ing the way Dori and her owner treat each other, you can tell they both think so, too.

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