Black Labrador Retriever [Mix]

Underdog is a very friendly, people-loving 60+lb neutered male black lab mix (our vet says he's almost all lab) who was saved from death in the pound at the last minute - he had two reprieves and we finally sprung him, although the red tape almost made it impossible to save him, so he is a very lucky dog! He has been at a boarding facility since September, and we have racked up well over $1,000 we could ill afford in rescuing Underdog, providing vet care, and boarding charges. We cannot afford any more - we are having to put off needed care for some of our cats. Carolina Pet Resort has grown very fond of Underdog while he has been with them, and they want him to get a good home as much as we do. He loves being out and running and playing, but he doesn't much like it when he has to go back to his little concrete run - well, who would??? FOR THE RIGHT HOME WE WILL WAIVE THE USUAL ADOPTION DONATION FOR UNDERDOG. He gets along with larger dogs. Unfortunately he CANNOT be trusted with cats (and we are a cat rescue and we all have lots of cats), so he must have a home WITHOUT ANY CATS and with someone responsible who will be careful to see that he cannot hurt other people's cats (he likely will chase a cat that runs, and that can turn bad). He will need a well-fenced yard - privacy fencing would be preferred. He minds very well what you say to him and the boarding facility he is at feels he will probably be easily trainable if someone is willing to invest the time to do so - both Underdog and his adopter would benefit from this. He loves to follow you around and adores human attention, and wants to form a bond with one special person. Like most labs, he does have a tendency to chew. The reason he ended up at the pound was because he was running with another big dog, probably his companion, on a busy street one Saturday morning. The staff of our local library saw them and shooed them out of the road into the safety of the library parking lot, but the dogs ran behind the library where there are some apartments for the elderly. Unfortunately for him, Underdog was happy and excited to see some people, and jumped up someone, so the apartment management called the pound, who chased and caught Underdog but not his companion. That evening I met the companion dog when I went into the library, and I tried for several hours until midnight to rescue him, but because I had no help he kept escaping from my crate and at midnight I finally had to give up. This dog had remained in the library entrance all day long after Underdog was captured by the pound, and quite regularly about every 20 minutes or so he ran a circle around the building and around the area in the back where they had nabbed his pal. It was hot and he was agitated, and obviously looking for his friend, and he kept at it all day. We had a severe storm that night and by the following day he was gone - perhaps back home. Perhaps the heavy storm obliterated his pal's scent. We originally hoped to reunite both dogs, but since we couldn't capture the black and white one, we were unsure what to do about Underdog, since he had been taken off to the pound. We knew they would most probably kill him if his owner didn't turn up, as there are way too many big black dogs at the pound already. So with great difficulty we sprang Underdog from the pound - they didn't want to let us have him and he went to the wire on euthanasia time before we finally worked things out with the help of a couple of other rescues. Now Underdog needs a home very soon - he was at the vet's for several weeks as he caught kennel cough in the pound and we first had to treat that (he's all better now), and we ran up a rather large bill for this and additional boarding as we are all cat people without fenced yards and we had nowhere to keep a dog! We had him in a foster home, but they had cats and we found this did not work. We are now boarding him at a boarding facility at $9, which though reasonable we really can't afford. I have cancer and no job, insurance or income - I can't even afford to have my own surgery, let alone continue to pay to board Underdog. He's called "Underdog" because everyone kept asking why we wanted to rescue him when there were so many more "adoptable" dogs at the pound. Well, much as we'd like to, we couldn't rescue them all and I probably shouldn't have rescued him at all. There are other groups who pull the smaller, more adoptable dogs. Our path had crossed that of Underdog's and it seemed that God wanted us to rescue him. He did test heartworm positive but his bloodwork and X-rays looked good, so our vet feels the disease is not advanced and he just needs to go on heartworm preventative and be watched for a while. He is now neutered and has all his shots. Ideally, we'd like him to be able to have house privileges or even be an indoor dog if you have the time to work with him. He might be a bit too strong for small children when he's excited, but older children - say 10 and up, would probably be OK.