When Cathy saw me on the Petfinder website, my name was Sarah. She has a human friend in Tucson named Sarah. And frankly, I don’t look like a Sarah. So she immediately named me Gracie.

I am named after Amazing Gracie, a book by Dan Dye, the founder of Three Dog Bakery. When their dog refused to eat commercial food, Dan Dye and his friends learned to cook a new kind of dog biscuit — and created an empire. Cathy loved the book — a warmly satisfying saga of dogs, serendipity and life success. And she loves the stores.

“Gracie,” she tells me, “you are named after a dog who made her owner a millionaire. And I expect you to live up to your name.”

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a dog. Here’s a photo of me, obviously stressed out by all that pressure.

Hello World,

My name is Gracie, a/k/a Amazing Gracie, a/k/a Princes Gracie.

I live in an apartment in Seattle with my mom, Cathy, and two cats. Cathy adopted me on January 2, 2006. I was hanging out in a foster home in Whatcom County, living the rural life of a country dog. One day my foster mom loaded me into a car and I found myself heading south to the Big City of Seattle.

As soon as I saw Cathy’s apartment, I knew I’d struck gold. Cathy’s living room has two cat beds and a huge dog crate. She doesn’t care about having nice furniture - just presentable in the style of Aging Graduate Student. This was going to be great. I picked out “my” corner of the couch on the first day.

“Gracie, you sleep here,” Cathy said the first night, pointing to the crate. She tossed in a big rubber kong toy with peanut butter. It was heaven.

“No dogs on the bed,” Cathy said firmly. “No dogs on the sofa.”

I just smiled and smacked my lips on the peanut butter.  I could tell: Cathy would be easy to train.