When Slick, who looks kind of like a long, tall, thin Border Collie, was rescued, he got so excited he had a heart attack. The nice lady who serves as Slick's communications director told me he was taken to Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, where he was equipped with a pacemaker. He goes back once a year for a checkup. He's going in for his third checkup in January.
For Slick and his communcations director, every day is Christmas. He was wearing the collar shown when I met him.
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We've mentioned the Great Obama Dog Search before on Heart of Dogness. In a fit of raging pomposity, we even called for the Obamas to go for a reascue dog. This is the Editorial We, incidentally. People tell me I'm something Royal, but it's not a We. Now the Chicago Tribune reports that the Obamas are considering a rescue puppy. Although that annoying Wayne Pacell guy from HSUS may think otherwise, this idea could only have come from Heart of Dogness. Dang, we got influence here. Update: This quote from Obama's press conference yesteday proves it! (I finally found the full quote in Dana Milbank's Washington Post column):
I pointed out in my pompous bit, linked to above, that as Americans, we're all mutts. I think this pretty much clinches it. Barack Obama reads Heart of Dogness. Tell all your friends. Update 2: Jake and Tycho do a Public-Service Announcement for adopting shelter dogs. Gus and JoJo cried when they saw this. |
I've been a bit lax about keeping folks up to date on the status of JoJo and Dinghy.
Gus no longer tries to kill JoJo, and has in fact become rather protective of her. They play together for hours, as illustrated at left. This looks, I'll admit, like Gus trying to kill JoJo, but please note that her teeth are every bit as much engaged as his. In fact, she usually starts this nonsense.
Best evidence that he's not actually trying to kill her is that, at some point during each of these fights, he'll roll onto his back and let her drag him around the room by his ruff. How a 25-pound dog drags a 60-pound dog eludes me, but she does it.
Dinghy is no longer the starved urchin he was when Betsy got him. He's about as tall and as long as JoJo, but his legs and body are twice as thick and his paws are bigger than Gus's (no big accomplishment, this: Gus looks like he's walking in toe shoes; nevertheless...). The vet's current estimate is that he's part beagle and part pit bull, and will end up at about 60 pounds. He's also a real sweetie pie.
My dog Lucky seemed to have a past. A past during which he had spent some time wild in the woods. I always suspected his owner's yard had been demolished by hurricane Hugo, and Lucky had taken the opportunity to escape.
He was shy, but I coaxed him out of the woods with some dogfood and he and I agreed that he would live with me thereafter. Life was good.
You wonder how a wild dog survives. Twice he showed me some remarkable food-acquiring skills.
One late summer day I was sitting quietly on my back stairs, sipping a beer. Lucky was loafing in the grassy area of our dirt driveway circle. Not really paying attention at first, I saw him get up and start snuffling the ground with his nose like some kind of crazy roothog. Trying to plow up some turf with his nose. Crazy dog, I mused. Lucky lay back down and became motionless again. About two minutes went by. A robin alit near him and started hopping near where Lucky had apparently stirred up some bugs with his nose. Dinner for robin.
So robin, picking at bugs, hops a bit closer to Lucky, and Lucky smoothly puts out his paw and pins robin to the ground. Dinner for Lucky.
I barely believed my eyes. "Holy S-word!" I shouted. Lucky looked up, thinking I was scolding him, removed his paw from robin, and robin flew away, no doubt shaken. "Sorry, Lucky," I called to him. He looked at me accusingly.
One other time I saw Lucky get a free meal from the wild in a way that shocked me. Walking the perimeter of the property in late spring, I noticed a fledgling baby bird just out of the nest, swaying unsteadily on a branch about seven feet off the ground. Lucky noticed him, too.
As I walked away from that area, Lucky began a hard charge towards that bird, right in front of it, locking eyes on that birdie as he leaped high, right towards the bird! And I knew that Lucky was not going to make a seven-foot leap, and I think Lucky knew, too. But the bird was so frightened he fell off the limb! And Lucky got a snack.
From Jumper's Journal. Used by permission. Link to original.
Georgie (black female Standard Poodle, six years old with newly diagnosed Addison's) and I had just tried to adopt a Kimi, a shiba inu, but it didn't work out. Kimi had severe dominance issues and was very destructive. She even attacked her own mother when she went back to the breeders.
Anyway, we realized it was pretty lonely here without another dog -- a boy standard poodle. He'd be named Henry or Jacques. Enter Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue. Georgie and I were interviewed. It didn't hurt that we had gone through a dog training course a few years earlier where one of the standard poodle reps for SPDR assisted with the class. In the meantime a poodle group friend in Florida called me and said there was a puppy mill 40 miles from us and they needed to be rescued. She'd heard about it from a reputable breeder in Washington.
I contacted SPDR, they raided the mill and got something like 45 poodles: toy, mini and standard. The conditions were deplorable, with many dogs in open outside kennels, three or more dogs per kennel. I was called the next day and told they had three SPs I could choose from. The meeting place was the parking lot behind the hair salon Lavena, one of the SPDR reps, owned. While we were waiting to see the dogs, a friend of Lavena's named Gordy came by. Everyone who knew him greeted him effusively.
Then the covers were removed from the dog crates. Two black male SPs, and then....sound of trumpets...the most pitiful, dirty and stinky white/apricot boy SP with hypnotic gold eyes. I instantly knew he was the one and his name would be Gordy.
Mom drove Gordy and me to the vets. I sat in the back with the poor scared stinky boy. He was very skittish and scared, his eyes were large as saucers with the whites showing. I hugged him gingerly and said "Gordy, I am your person and you will never ever live in fear or not be loved ever again".
After he stayed at the vets for 48 hours and got treatment, he came home. He had obviously been in one of the open kennels at the mill and was very frightened. He was scared of coffee cups -- I realized that the mill owner probably did rounds in the morning and if the dogs were loud or disobedient she probably threw the contents of her coffee cup at them.
Mom frequently came to visit because she also thought Gordy was special and needed love. Gordy lived under the dining table for many days and didn't mind being crated when I went to work. I wanted him to be comfortable with his new home and didn't rush anything.
One day I caught my 68-year-old mother belly crawling on the kitchen/dining room floor: maneuvering towards Gordy. That was the lightbulb moment. She got him to realize that this was home and no harm would ever happen again.
Now, four years later, Gordy and Georgie are best buddies. He and the cat have a great friendship. Gordy is the house security system, with barks to indicate various things such as Mom is walking up the walkway, dear friends are at the door or...eeeek the mailman had the nerve to put things in the mailbox! He still is skittish with loud noises or sudden movement but adores attention, running laps in the yard or long walks, treats and being here.
Adopting Gordy was one of the smartest and most emotionally fulfilling things I have ever done.
Besides at my house, that is. USA Today had a story on August 18 called "Mutt-i-grees Club: Where mongrel is the new pedigree". Mutt-i-grees Club is a project of the Pet Savers Foundation. My big sister sent me this story, which pretty much proves that those stories that my whole family hates me are exaggerated.
New material coming soon. Honest.
On August 24, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, local officials and representatives of the Humane Society of the United States rescued nearly 1,000 dogs from the Whispering Oaks Kennel, an industrial puppy mill that had operated for almost two decades.
The raid was prompted by neighbors' complaints about pollution in a nearby stream. Shouldn't be any surprise that anyone too self-absorbed to care about the cruelty they inflict on animals is also too self-absorbed to care about the slop they pass on to others.
In the surest sign yet that the End Times are upon us, my Lovely and Charming wife developed Puppy Fever a couple weeks ago after Betsy adopted Dinghy. [Update: the vets now think Dinghy's going to grow up to be between 50 and 70 pounds; good thing the Schnauzers are nice to him.] So we went to Petfinder, and found JoJo, a beagle mixed with some kind of hound, at PAWS New England. We applied, were accepted, and on Saturday, July 19, we went to Plainfield, Connecticut to pick her up, with her medical history and health certificates. We weren't alone. There were about 150 dogs on the truck [from Alpha Dog Transport], and all but a handful had families waiting for them.
I tried to document as much of it as I could. If you had a dog on that truck and I didn't get a picture, please send me one and I'll put it in the Photo Album.
Photo Album of the whole shebang
Late-Breaking News: Gus, to no one's great surprise, keeps sitting in the corner trying to will JoJo into disappearing. I'll keep you posted on how that works out. JoJo, to her credit, isn't taking any crap off him.
Scotty delivers boats. One of his boat deliveries took him to a yard in Lumberton, North Carolina, where he was greeted by six starving puppies,part beagle, part mystery, apparently abandoned there.
He called our friend Betsy, and asked if she'd like one. "Sure," was the answer. "How do I know which one?" Scotty asked. "Just say 'Who wants Betsy for a mama?'"
So Scotty said "Who wants Betsy for a mama?" and one puppy, who evidently thought he said "Who wants to vote for Obama?" ran forward. So he scooped that one, reported the rest to the local shelter, and drove Capeward.
In honor of his nautical heritage, the pup was named Dinghy. He had fleas, mange and a swollen belly due to malnutrition. He's been home about a week now, and is flealess, his mange subsiding, and his belly back to normal. And he's been adopted as well by Betsy's two miniature Schnauzers, Molly and Max.
His siblings may be at the Robeson County Humane Society
There was a wonderful story on ABC's Nightly News yesterday about freekibble.com, which is the creation of Mimi Ausland, a 12 year old girl from Bend, Oregon, who wanted to help feed the hungry dogs at her local animal shelter. Every time you play the trivia game at freekibble.com, 20 pieces of kibble are donated to the project.
Mimi's inspiration was the tremendous increase of dogs being turned in to shelters because their families' homes were foreclosed on. She's now expanded the project to include cats (hey, a dog's gotta have something to chase, right?) I'm adding the widget below to my right column. Play now, play often, feed the mutts.
Update: The widget wouldn't display right, so I've made it a text link. Right below "Send me your True Dog Stories"
Here's that peach of a dog story from Shelia Duncan of Trouble Says Be Tough:
A farmer in Tennessee had sold his cows and therefore had no more use for a beautiful, pure bred Australian Shepherd girl named Sassy. So he took her to a high kill shelter where it was discovered that she had heartworm, etc., etc., etc. - e.g. she was not adoptable. Through our work with the SPCA of TN , I received an e-mail about her and started the wheels turning to save her.
I have a friend who owns a golf course in Rhode Island. He wanted a dog to chase geese and I thought Sassy would fill the bill.He paid for the treatment necessary to save her life. And 23 people drove legs in a transport to bring this little girl to Rhode Island.
Well, she is a perfect dog ... beautifully behaved and has charmed every person she's met. Now, there are no geese since Sassy's arrival ... but that's ok as she's now herding the golf carts. She is never alone for a moment ... and is the belle of the ball.
Imagine that farmer not giving her a second thought?
That's why I'd like to highlight the plight of the dogs in TN -- every single one we've rescued is absolutely wonderful ... and there are so very many that some people simply discount them ... like trash. They don't neuter or spay their animals ... and if they lose a dog they don't even look for it ... they simply get another.
Blog author's note: This is not intended to characterize ALL the people of Tennessee as heartless clods who don't understand that dogs are living, sentient beings. Nor is this a problem confined to Tennessee, the South, or rural areas. I've heard and read stories of similar abuse from all over the country, and the world. You can help provide the education and enforcement needed by contributing to SPCATN or any of the following:
International Fund for Animal Welfare
American Humane
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Humane Society of the United States
Animal Rescue League of Boston
North Shore Animal League of America
One of the joys of the Licensing Expo was meeting Sheila Duncan, co-founder of Trouble Says Be Tough. Trouble, shown at left, is a very soft and comforting stuffed dog based on a drawing by Sheila's neice, Kendra. Read their story by clicking on the link above.
Trouble Says Be Tough supports several health and animal protection organizations, including St. Jude Children's Hospital (geezers like me will remember this as Danny Thomas's favorite charity), SPCA of Tennessee, Patriot Lab & All Breed Rescue, and the Marblehead Animal Shelter.
Sheila also sent me a peach of a True Dog Story, which I'll be posting next week.
I'd like to apologize to all of my reader for leaving out the snide remarks and dreadful puns I usually include in my posts. This may happen from time to time. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is sometimes.
Friend and former colleague Meghan reports that she's recently adopted a 7-year-old deaf Maltese named Chanel, rescued from the shame and struggle of life in a puppy mill. Poor little doggy developed a tumor after too many litters.
Chanel flew first class to Meghan on Super Bowl Sunday. No word yet on whether she's Chanel No. 5 or Chanel No. 19.
