Dogs of Del Mar: Rami

Meet Rami, short for Ramen Noodle, an 11-year old ShihPoo whose family includes Henry Wong, Barbara Aufiero, and their son, Harrison, who occasionally visits from Ann Arbor. We recently moved to Del Mar from Little Rock when Henry, a dermatologist/scientist specializing in T-cell mediated immune disorders, was offered positions at the VA hospital and UCSD.

Rami joined the family in Columbus, Ohio as a six month old rescue from a puppy mill. He emerged with a docked tail that adds an unmistakable dimension to his quirkiness. Rami is a great traveler. Rami’s car travels started on his first Christmas when we visited relatives. Preferring not to have him fly, we drove from Columbus to Boston on to Baltimore stopping every two hours for house training. It was a successful strategy and he developed a penchant for car rides. Since then, Rami has added about 25 long distance road trips to his roster. Twice, he has been on cross country trips. He discovered many oddball curiosities, like a stop in Kansas with a “petting zoo” of deer, where he and a deer were transfixed in 5 minutes of interactive sniffing. On other trips, he fraternized from the car window with prairie dogs in South Dakota, marmots in the Rocky Mountains, sampled wagyu beef burgers in Indiana, and explored, by motor boat, the sea caves of the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. To date Rami has visited 44 out of 50 US states. and we are determined for him to see the 5 remaining drive-to states.