Wanna know how our book “My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts” came into being? Well, that’s a long, convoluted story, of course, but in some ways it can be traced back to Hurricane Sandy.

After that superstorm struck in October 2012, Cheryl Pientka — our future literary agent — saved a little senior dog named Sasha who needed a place to go. The transforming power of that experience led Cheryl to dream about a future non-fiction book that could help change people’s perceptions of older shelter dogs … and by August 2013, photographer Lori Fusaro and I found ourselves mesmerized during our first conference call with Cheryl. Cheryl’s enthusiasm was infectious: We knew we HAD to do this book together!

Here, Cheryl describes how she came to love Sasha so much:

I love my old dog, Sasha, because she’s a survivor.

As her previous family tells it, Sasha began barking furiously at the front door of their home in Keansburg Beach, New Jersey, the night of Oct. 29, 2012 when Hurricane Sandy made landfall. She was alerting them to rising water surrounding their house. After being evacuated from a second-story window, they lost everything and were forced to move in with cousins who also had dogs. In just days, Sasha began losing her fur and fighting with the other dogs. She needed a new environment fast.

After seeing a heart-wrenching post on Facebook, I volunteered to foster. I thought that because Sasha is really cute and pretty small, she’d have no problem finding a new home and I’d have her, tops, for three weeks. But the family told us she was 15, and that age proved harder to combat than I thought. I let everyone we met know that she was looking for a new home. And people kept saying, “Yeah, but 15? I can’t.” Or, “That’s too old.” And then they started saying, “She seems pretty happy with you.” “Why don’t you keep her?”

Cheryl Pientka made this poster to help get Sasha adopted — a move that ultimately led to an epic “foster fail”! (Poster image courtesy of Cheryl Pientka; top photo by Lori Fusaro)

I made a terrific poster for her, “Hurricane Hero Needs a Loving Home.” But when the first genuine interest came in, I started to cry. I’d fallen hard for Sasha, who had turned out to be the most energetic old dog I’d ever met. I thought old dogs slept most of the time. But Sasha followed me everywhere, barked at and chased my cats and loved hiking in the woods. She chased balls and attacked her toys. She pranced when she walked and even liked going on runs around the park with me. And she had the most contagious happy smile. I couldn’t imagine life without her.

Now, almost three years later, Sasha still doesn’t like the cats, she doesn’t really like snuggling, she pretends not to like my boyfriend (except when they go on car rides), and she bites when scared or stressed. And we recently found out that she wasn’t 15 when I got her — she was 9. So she’s going to be around a few more years. I hope. Because I absolutely adore my old dog.

Love your old dog? Tell us why! Send your thoughts, observations and dog photos to stories@myolddogbook.com with “I love my old dog because” in the subject line. Your dog may be featured in a future post!

Love stories and photos of sweet senior pooches? The book “My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts” by Laura T. Coffey and Lori Fusaro is due out on Oct. 6. It’s available for pre-order now at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com.