PERFECT PETS

Paw patrol

PRINT-WORTHY PETS THAT BRING PILES OF SMILES

Stories by RACHEL STONE and LIESBETH POWERS

Photography by JESSICA TURNER

Neighborhood celebrity: ‘Baby’ Milo Butterfinger

One thing about Milo Butterfinger: He’s a scene stealer.

When Aimee Ives walks him with her 9-month-old baby, Isla, people say, “Oh, you have such a cute ...”

“And I think they’re going to say ‘baby,’” she says. “But then they’re like, ‘... dog.’ You have such a cute dog.”

Ives and her husband, Alan, got the Cavalier King Charles spaniel about two and a half years ago. The dog is obsessed with his very adorable human sister.

When Isla rolls on the floor, Milo will roll on the floor.

It’s cuter than a box full of kittens.

Milo is popular with the neighborhood kids, who call him “Baby Milo.”

“They draw him pictures and want him to come to their birthday parties,” Aimee says.

The Iveses, who moved to Lake Highlands about three years ago, have found their perfect pet sitter, Gabi, whose own Cavalier King Charles, Gertie, is Milo’s “girlfriend.” Aimee’s mom also has a dog of the same breed, Juju, who is Milo’s “BFF.”

He’ll perch on his owners’ shoulders like a parrot while they’re sitting on the couch.

“This is our usual work-from-home position,” Aimee says.

He bellies up to the freezer door handle to beg for ice, which he prefers to be crushed.

And he failed doggy daycare.

“We signed him up because he has lots of energy and I thought he’d enjoy playing with the other dogs,” Aimee says. “Turns out he likes people better and followed the worker around the whole time.”

Canine angel: Nelson

“I know I’m biased, but he’s perfect,” says Allison Sheffieck of her family dog, Nelson.

She and her parents found him at a Plano animal shelter in 2012. Nelson was sitting there, completely chilled out, like he was just waiting.

“He was the only dog we looked at,” Sheffieck says. “We took him home that day.”

His graceful demeanor landed him the role of Sandy in a production of Annie at The Shelton School a few years ago, but he found the actor’s life too boring after one or two rehearsals.

“I think he prefers modeling,” Sheffieck says.

Sheffieck, a school nurse in Richarson ISD, was raised in Lake Highlands with siblings Sarah, who is a teacher, and Caroline, who recently graduated from Texas Tech. Their mom, Diane, is a teacher, and their dad, Andrew, is an engineer.

Nelson came into their lives after the death of their 6-year-old dog, Clovis. He had a ruptured tumor in his spleen and died while the Sheffiecks were away on vacation. Nelson even looks like Clovis, and they can’t imagine a more perfect pet.

“He’s the same dog today that he was at the shelter,” Sheffieck says. “He’s 10 years old now, but he’s always acted like he was 10 years old.”

the eyes have it: Lucky

It was love at first sight.

Karen Clardy showed up early for an Operation Kindness adoption event two years ago at Whole Foods in Plano. She and her husband, Floyd, had recently lost their white husky and still had an aging rottweiler at home.

“I saw this awesome dog,” she says. “And I just grabbed him and said, ‘I want this dog.’”

Lucky, picked up by Dallas Animal Services and rescued by the nonprofit, had been fixed, but he had heartworms and pinworms.

Human and canine connected right away, and now they’re inseparable.

Clardy, the Richardson ISD Board president who lives in Lake Highlands, says Lucky has become her Zoom buddy. She’d tell her husband, “OK I’m getting ready to go on my Zoom,” and find Lucky already in his place on the loveseat in her office. He’ll sit politely through a four-hour meeting, and he knows not to bark, she says.

They love taking walks together, and Clardy thinks the companionship has added years to rottweiler Coco’s life.

They got along from the get-go.

“Coco’s a huge, big dog,” Clardy says. “He gave her a little kiss on the side of the cheek, and Lucky became the head dog.”

Lucky is protective, and he loves barking at the garbage truck. He’s smart, but he doesn’t do tricks. And he’s found the perfect companion.

“I felt very lucky, so that’s why I called him Lucky,” Clardy says. “There were a lot of stars that had to line up for us to be together. He’s my emotional support dog.”

Host with the most: Wilson

It’s a grill only a mother could love.

Wilson, a pure-bred Lakeland terrier, was a show dog.

“But they discovered that he had bad teeth, and he wasn’t able to be shown anymore,” says Cheryl Zreet.

She and her husband, Alan, adopted Wilson after he hung it up, about nine years ago, and it was serious business.

“They visited our house,” Cheryl says. “They wanted to make sure he was the only pet in the home.”

Wilson lives large in his postshow biz life. He loves to sit on a float in the pool. A vanilla pup-cone from Andy’s Frozen Custard is his favorite treat, and he’s been known to sneak a sip of beer. A recent vacation to Marfa found him stargazing at the McDonald Observatory and on a hiking trip across the Rio Grande. He also enjoys visiting 94-year-old Grandma Zreet at a nursing home in Georgetown, Texas. Besides that, sleeping is his favorite.

As a terrier, he despises varmints and chases squirrels with a vengeance.

Although he doesn’t like dogs or other animals, he always greets human guests at the door and makes them feel welcome. But ladies have to be warned to zip their purses because otherwise Wilson will nose around and steal their Chapstick or lotion.

His original name was Jerry — from a litter of puppies named after the Seinfeld TV series — they had to change his name because their across-the-street neighbor is named Jerry, and that would be awkward.

The Zreets have lived in Lake Highlands since 1991. Their son, Collin, and his wife, Taylor, are co-owners of Funky Picnic Brewery & Café in Fort Worth. And their daughter, Rachael, is a nurse practitioner and newlywed in Houston. She and her husband, Thomas Wright, have a one-eared cat named Van Gogh.

lab rat to lab dog: cosmo

Cosmo was born and bred to be a laboratory “specimen” for experimental studies in Memphis, Tennessee.

Knowing life only from the confines of a cage and having a number for a name, Cosmo made his way from incarceration to freedom and to a family that loves him.

Born in 2014 as test subject A-370771, Cosmo was set to begin testing when activists fought the pharmaceutical company that held him and four other beagles. The rescuers were told the dogs could be adopted rather than euthanized when testing was finished. Instead they were dumped in the nearby woods.

Cosmo survived for a month in the wilderness and was found malnourished and disheveled. He had been infected with heartworms, and many of his teeth were rotting.

Maurice and Jule Aguirre were not planning to get another beagle. They had just lost one of their older dogs to liver cancer and were still grieving. One of their pups has a Facebook following and had shared posts about the loss of her brother. Fans started to point to adopting another beagle, Cosmo, originally named Shiloh.

“His story made me open up and say, ‘Well maybe it’s some kind of cosmic thing,’” Jule says.

Cosmo came to them traumatized. He would jump and hide, and he had to be treated for his drug-resitant heartworms.

Cosmo was too scared to leave his cage most days after he was brought home from the Blytheville Humane Society in Arkansas. One kind encounter from another of the Aguirres’ dogs helped change his direction.

The dog leaned into the cage and nuzzled Cosmo’s neck. After that, Cosmo began to give and receive love.

Nearly five years later, Cosmo is still skittish sometimes, but he’s found comfort in his sister Kali, their 11-year-old rescued beagle. He started following her around years before she accepted their friendship. Now, they’re always together.

“He’s like a sponge that wants to soak her in,” Jule says. “You often find them lying right next to each other.”

Without an aggressive bone in his body, Cosmo absorbs love and attention from anyone.

“He’s just a walking ball of love,” Jule says.