The Washington Capitals held their annual photoshoot on Tuesday for their Caps Canine Calendar. We’ll have a general photo post and more about the “star” of today’s activities later, but for now, I wanted to focus your eyeballs on something that I found completely irrelevant but very important at the same time.

Towards the middle of the session, Capitals forward Tom Wilson emerged wearing a plum suit. But it was the foster dad’s accessory that I’m going to need you to focus on.

Wilson was holding a puppy that was wearing sunglasses.

Later, Tom introduced the puppy to Martin Fehervary who was captivated.

And yes, of course, we made a GIF.

I reached out to Wolf Trap Animal Rescue and Jenny Campanilla said the puppy’s name is Bridesmaid. She came up to their shelter two weeks ago and is still available for adoption (as of publishing). The Boxer Shepherd (mixed) was rescued in Mississippi after being found living outside.

For the actual calendar photo, however, Wilson didn’t actually pose with Bridesmaid. Nic Dowd got the honor of cheesing with her.

Instead, Wilson was paired with a dog named Little Brother. He’s been in Wolf Trap Animal Rescue’s system since June, but everyone is shy about adopting him because he’s a tripod (three legs).

“He’s super cool and chill and gets along with everyone and anything,” Jenny from WTAR told me. “It’s heartbreaking.”

The story behind how Little Brother lost one of his back legs is excruciating.

We got a call months ago from someone who was on her way to work and saw two puppies on the side of the road. On her way home from work, the same two puppies were in the same exact spot. She realized by now, no one else was going to come help them so she got out to get them. When she got closer, she saw one of the puppies had been run over and killed. And his sweet and precious little brother would not leave his side. He stayed next to his brother for a minimum of nine hours (who knows how long he had been there that we just don’t know about) waiting for his brother to get up so they could leave together. He wouldn’t leave him behind.

Obviously, with a story like that, we immediately picked him up. After everything he had been through, he deserved to be in one of our foster homes getting the love he needed.

And that’s when we noticed his leg. He dragged his back leg so much that he had scraped sores in it. We assumed he had been hit by a car (like his brother was) so we took him to the vet the next day. We were shocked when we saw on the x-rays that he had been shot!!! At this point, he was like a four-month-old puppy. And he had already lived through his brother being killed and him being shot at.

Weeks of medication went by and not only did it not get better, it got worse. The X-rays we did also showed he had a huge tumor in his leg. Well actually, at first we just thought it was scar tissue, but when the leg didn’t get better, a second x-ray provided it was a tumor.

If you’d like to adopt or meet Tripod — really, one of you should adopt him, he sounds amazing — you can reach out here.

Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.

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