“Saved my life!”

Honorary National Trade Banc member and official mascot Skipper was rescued from the mean streets and given lifesaving treatment—on trade. No one but Skipper knows how he lived for his first 18 months or so. Adrienne, a National Trade Banc employee, spotted him in a parking lot, wandering without a collar in a chill, driving rain.

“He was drenched and shivering, yet came right up to me in a friendly way,” Adrienne says. “He wagged his tail and looked me right in the eye, like he was expecting me to help him. I couldn’t leave him there. When I opened my car door, he hopped in without hesitating.” Adrienne brought him home.

She and her family, longtime dog lovers, dried off the stray and fed him. “ His skin was stretched over his ribs,” says Adrienne. “It looked like he’d been waiting a month for a square meal.”

Adrienne and her family placed ads and posted notices, trying to locate the dog’s owner. “We figured he must have had a family because he is so friendly. He isn’t afraid of people, and has a spunky upbeat personality.” They contacted all the vets in the area and notified a local volunteer network that helps reunite strays with their families. No one claimed the dog, a terrier.

He quickly became a regular around the National Trade Banc office. “He’d hop into my lap like he was born to be there,” says NTB President Heidi Flis. “ We started calling him Skipper.”

To make Skipper adoptable, Heidi and Adrienne took him to Dr. John Kottenstette, a veterin-ary physician who’s a National Trade Banc member. Dr. K, as he’ s known, volunteers his clinic services for some rescue and hardship cases. He also accepts trade dollars as pay-ment from NTB members like optometrist Donna Jaszkowski, who devotes her off hours to cat rescue work.

Dr. K, in turn, reduces the cash cost of oper-ating his newly expanded and relocated Pet Medical Center, such as by furnishing the clinic on trade. Heidi recalls, “We brought Skipper to Dr. K for shots and a complete exam including a blood test. We also planned to have him neutered,“ an important step toward adoption.

The next day, however, Dr. K called with alarming news. As a stray, Skipper’s had contracted heartworm. Left untreated, heartworm kills. But there was hope, Dr. K told Heidi. The disease was still at an early stage. “At that point, I knew we had to fight for Skip-per,” Heidi said. “I decided then and there to adopt him myself.”

Prior to heartworm treatment, Heidi and Adrienne took Skipper to Dr. K for neutering. After a week’s recovery from that procedure, it was time to do battle with heartworm. Any heartworm treatment is risky. Skipper would be treated with toxins that, with luck and veterinary skill, would kill the parasite before endangering Skipper’s own life. The only alternative would be slow death from the disease. “We had to leave Skipper at Dr. K’s clinic for three extremely tense days of treatment,” says Heidi. “Thank God, he came through it okay.” Upon his return home, Heidi and Adrienne celebrated by naming Skipper an Honorary Member of National Trade Banc. He is the first creature on four legs or two to receive this honor.

Veterinary services for Skipper cost hundreds of dollars and his total vet bills may exceed $1,000 — all paid in trade dollars by National Trade Banc. “I am grateful we have among our NTB members such an outstanding vet as Dr. Kot-tenstette,” Heidi says. “Skipper is alive today thanks to Dr. K.”