Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Most people buy a house and then buy a dog.

David and Jennifer Hill aren't most people.

The Hills' attachment to an abandoned, 10-year-old Dalmatian named Story prompted them to become homeowners.

It all started when Jennifer Hill did her regular check of the SPCA website. She scans the site often to see which animals are without a home.

"When I first saw him on the website, he was in very rough shape," said Jennifer. "He had scars from frostbite around his mouth, his paws and his elbows. He's lost part of his tail due to frostbite. It's still healing right now. He was missing a tooth, too."

Story was found freezing on Kam Lake. The dog was picked up by bylaw and delivered to the SPCA shelter at Great Slave Animal Hospital.

Jennifer visited the dog at the pound and instantly fell in love with him, despite the rough condition he was in. She wanted to bring him home. She had adopted many cats from the SPCA in the past. There was only one problem: her husband, David Hill, was saying no.

"I wanted David to go see him," said Jennifer. "I told him to go see the dog after I saw the photo. He was like, 'No, we can't get a dog. We live in an apartment. There's no question. I don't want to look at him because it's just going to make me sad.'"

David's suspicions were right.

"David finally broke down and went to see him," Jennifer said. "When David saw him, he said, 'He's so sweet. People are so evil.' That's what anyone would say, I think. I mean, people left him outside to die basically."

David warmed up to Story as much as Jennifer.

"Then David calls me at work. He says, 'Guess where I am? I'm at the SPCA. I'm petting Story.' We both went together and decided to adopt him."

The Hills still had one obstacle in front of them: their apartment strictly prohibited any pets.

"We figured we better get a house so we can get the dog," says David. "So we ended up buying a house.

"It's kind of a backwards way to do it, but, you know."

The Hills were hardly planning on getting a house; David had just bought a new truck.

"I didn't really budget for a new house," admits David. "I have to pay it all off now!"

Asked why he and his wife have given so much for a dog, he said,

"We've always adopted animals from the pound. And, of course, usually, the worse off they are the more likely we are to get them."

The Hills' devotion to Story didn't stop with the purchase of the house. There's still a lot of work to do on making their new one-story bungalow on Larocque Crescent accessible for the injured dog.

"He has two bad legs on the same side," Jennifer says of the dog. "And the house is all hardwood floors, no carpet at all. We have to make it accessible by putting in rugs. So we have to order rugs in from The Brick because we can't get them in Yellowknife."

He will slip on that kind of surface unless we carpet it.

"We also have to build a ramp in the entranceway. We have someone building the ramp for us."

The Hills and their new companion will be moving into the house on May 1st.

"It's worth it, though, because he's a beautiful dog," said Jennifer.

"He didn't deserve to be in the situation that he was in."

- This story was originally scheduled to appear on the cover of Monday's News/North, it was replaced by a story on Friday's fire on Borden Drive.