ohmidog!

As white and fluffy as the clouds overhead, this Great Pyrenees sprawled in the grass seems to go on forever.

That’s because what you’re seeing are really two Great Pyrenees — Pyreneeses, Pyreni? (Actually, the plural is the same as the singular.)

We stopped to photograph the pair over the weekend, while attending a fundraiser for a new dog park in Tanglewood, outside Winston-Salem.

From one angle (top photo), with the slimmer of the two hidden behind the more, shall we say, Rubenesque one, it looks like one loooooong dog.

Opal and Pearl, who are sisters, were both adopted through Carolina Great Pyrenees Rescue.

 
The kindness of strangers has gotten Ozzie a long way. Now the Great Pyrenees — abandoned as a pup — is ready for his next big step.

Ozzie was one of three pups abandoned by a breeder. For five months, they wandered North Carolina’s coast,  until a stranger coralled them and called Carolina Great Pyrenees Rescue.

The rescue’s president Martha Rehmeyer, of Winston-Salem, took the three brothers in.

The dogs were dirty and emaciated, didn’t trust people, and had never worn collars. They were also big — the gentle breed commonly surpasses the 100-pound mark.

Rehmeyer and other volunteers spent months training and socializing the pets and, once that was accomplished, Ozzie’s brothers, Big Um and Titan, quickly found adoptive homes.

But Ozzie didn’t, mainly because he walked funny – like a duck, Rehmeyer explained to the  Winston-Salem Journal. His back paws splayed out at 90-degree angles. X-rays showed that the knee ligaments in his back legs weren’t properly developed. Ozzie underwent surgery on his right leg, to insert a pin that would hold his knee in place, and thereby straighten out one of his paws. A few months later he had the same surgery on his left leg. He’s now staying temporarily in Greensboro with a foster mom, Susan Tanzer,  who calls him a “bionic” dog. The rescue organization is seeking a forever home for him.

Carolina Great Pyrenees Rescue charges a $250 adoption fee for each dog, an amount meant to cover the cost of spaying or neutering, as well as house training and socializing the animals for adoption.

Rehmeyer wouldn’t divulge how much Ozzie’s surgeries cost, saying that wasn’t important. “We do it for the love of the breed, for the love of the dogs.”

To learn about Ozzie and the rescue’s other dogs, visit its website.

(Photo courtesy of Carolina Great Pyrenees Rescue)