Samantha, Angel and Sally

To celebrate the release of Everything But a Dog tomorrow,
I'm talking to people who work with, or have adopted, rescue animals!
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Holly: When Samantha Stafford sent me her animal rescue stories, I saw one of the dogs was named Angel.  As I worked on these stories this week, I realized I'd met a lot of angels!

Sally

Samantha had two special rescue stories:  First is Angel, and what happened was one day I was on my way to pick up my little brother from school and I saw a tiny dog in the middle of the road. I honked but the dog did not move. So I got out of the car and went over to see what was wrong. It was a toy Yorkie and when I looked closer I saw a pool of blood around her feet. 

I picked her up and found that she had sandspurs or pricks embedded in her little feet. I put her in the car and when we got home took the time to get them out. I felt so bad for her because it hurt her so bad. After that I looked over her and realized that she had spots shaved all over her and needle scars in the shaved spots. She also had a tumor on her chest. Looking at her I thought she was old, come to find out she was not even 10 months old. 

Everything about this dog brought tears to my eyes. She was so skinny I kept trying to feed her but she wouldnt eat. Turns out every one of her teeth had been pulled out individually. So I got her some mashed wet food and she scarfed it down. She was so scared she would not let me do anything without her, so I was always carrying her. She would wimper if I tried to set her down, unless she had to potty. I knew it would take a special person to take this poor little pup and it took a little while to find the perfect person. 

Jen was my aunt's neighbor and she had been battling cancer for a long time. She was at the point were she had given up, and she never went out. I brought her the dog and they were perfect for each other. She named the pup Angel, because she said the dog was sent to her from heaven to save her. They are both doing great, better than we could have hoped for.

Another is Sally, we got her when my brother wanted a dog. We went to the pound and he did not see any dog he wanted. As we were leaving we saw them taking a dog into the back room where they did euthinisation. My brother determined THAT was his dog. So after a long battle with the people working there, they agreed to let us have her after filling out many legal forms. 

He named her Sally and we brought her home. Since then we learned a lot about her past. She was a year old and had been adopted twice and abandoned twice. She had been beaten, as was evident from ribs healed wrong and a broken jaw. She had no fur left because she had a skin condition no one treated. The last home that had her had left her in an apartment with no air, windows closed, no food and no water for roughly two weeks. She was virtually dead when they found her. They were putting her down because they had deemed her "vicious". That is because when they brought her back, mind you she was starved, they gave her food and took it away, when they tried to move it she attacked them. Personally, i would have too. 

Anyway, she is now 15 years old, has a full and healthy coat and is spoiled beyond belief. I love that dog.

Samantha Stafford

Kay and her Tizzy, and Gaby, Zip and Jackson

To celebrate the release of Everything But a Dog on 12/11/12 
I'm talking to people who work with, or have adopted, rescue animals!
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Holly:  Sometimes you find your pet, sometimes your pet finds you...and sometimes you both find each other with one surprising crash! 

Kay:  ”I came home from school one day, many moons ago, to a note: don't let Ginger in, don't let Tizzy out. Tizzy? The crashing of saucepans under the sink lead me to a very large black cat... who soon became very much part of the family!” 

Holly: I love having a saying or motto to build a book on.  Something I keep in mind as I work.  When I wrote Confession of a Party Crasher, the book's saying was, Sometimes What You Think You Want Isn't What You Want at All. Or, as Gaby titled her adoption story, "How an AL rescue shelter dog found a home in DE, or be careful what you say to your children."

Jackson and Zip

Gaby Pratt:  “Our AL daughter posted a precious picture of a dog on FB. My comment - wish you could bring him home to Zip. Now, our Aussie, Zip Down Under, other than uninteresting barn cats, does not have access to livestock. Therefore, she herds up people and scares the daylights out of our little grandchildren. 

I'm thinking, thinking only, maybe Zip needs a companion. The next day I get a phone call. I got the dog from the shelter, he's scheduled for surgery, Mac, her husband, named the dog, Jackson, and the vet says Scottish Terrier hybrid. See ya Thanksgiving. We braced ourselves - with good cause. One look at Jackson and I say Scottie terrier my hind end. He's a Jack Russell if I've ever seen one. Thanks be for the farm and a place to run. There is no quit in either one of them. When all 12 of the clan pulled out Sunday from our too small house, my husband and I collapsed, I mean as much as we could, staring at Jackson and Zip gettin' after it.”  

Elizabeth Sinclair and Butch

Butch

To celebrate the release of Everything But a Dog on 12/11/12 
I'm talking to people who work with, or have adopted, rescue animals!
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Sometimes a dog isn't rescued from a shelter and sometimes the person doesn't find the dog...sometimes the dog finds it's own forever home!  Holly

BUTCH, ABANDONED AND UNLOVED
By Elizabeth Sinclair aka Marge Smith

My husband and I live in what we lovingly refer to as “the boonies” outside St. Augustine, Fl.  As a result, we see more than our share of strays the people have abandoned in one way or another.  The owners either move away and leave the animals behind, they just let them run loose, or they drop them out here, assuming someone will take them in.

A little over a month ago, my husband Bob asked if I’d seen the stray dog wandering around the neighborhood.  I hadn’t.  He explained that the dog appeared to be part Rottweiler and part German Shepard and still in his puppy stage (about a year old).  Rottweiler?  My spidy-senses went to full alert, but he explained that the dog had a beautiful disposition and was quite friendly.

 Bob felt bad for the dog and began feeding him in his print shop, as well as providing him with a bed.  He even named him Butch. I told him that I had no problem with him keeping Butch outside, but not in the house.  We already have a seventy-eight pound Collie and a seventy-three pound Golden Retriever, and I felt three big dogs in the house would be too much. He agreed.

Butch sometimes spent the night, but more often wandered off to parts unknown only to return the next day. We found out later that he had other temporary homes and feeding venues in the neighborhood: one provided by the owner of two Beagles across the street from us, one by the owner of two rescue dogs around the corner from us and another by a snowbird who comes down here every winter from Illinois.  At each of these “homes” he had a different name – Butch, Buddy, Blacky and Charlie.

A few days after first being made aware of our new guest (I still hadn’t even seen him), I returned from a shopping trip to town.  As I opened the car door to get out, I was surprised to have a set of black paws planted firmly in my lap, two large soulful eyes staring up at me and a warm tongue licking my face. This was my first up-close and personal introduction to the not-so-shy Butch. My husband was right.  Butch was a love, a beautiful black and brown, doofus of a dog.

About a week following our first meeting, the mailman told Bob he knew where Butch lived and gave him directions to the house.  Bob loaded Butch in the minivan and took him home. When he got there, he found the house padlocked and no one in sight.  We assumed the family had been foreclosed on and moved out, abandoning Butch (I found out later that the family had been jailed on burglary charges). At that point, Bob unofficially adopted Butch.

Butch is a runner, and though we tried to keep him penned with our dogs (we have a half acre fenced in yard for our dogs to run in), he found ways to “escape.” No matter what we did, the dog managed to find a way free. So, he continued to roam the neighborhood taking handouts and sleeping in our print shop.  Then one day, my husband came in the house to tell me that the Beagles’ owner said that Animal Control had taken Butch.  If he wasn’t claimed in five days, he’d be put down.  However, since he’s part Rottweiler (and looks full blooded) they might only keep him a day.

I was devastated, and you’d have thought someone told my husband that they were about to execute his kids. How could they do that to such a sweet animal?  My son, who’d also adopted one of the strays left to wander our neighborhood (a beautiful, snow white Lab he calls Wiley), volunteered to go bail Butch out.  We gave him the cash, had him stop at our vets to get the pre-paid rabies certificate required by the state before turning an animal loose and orders to bring Butch home.

Butch has been here ever since. Yes, he’s a house dog now (3 big dogs isn’t really that bad), but he’s still a runner.  Although now he jumps the five foot gate on our deck, goes over to visit his Beagle friends across the street and comes back about twenty minutes later, slithers through the opening in the deck rail and spends the rest of the day in his new home.

Whoever abandoned him is missing out on one loving, terrific animal.  Butch is a doofus who walks into walls, falls down in lieu of lying down and on occasion even knocks over small pieces of furniture, but he’s our doofus and will be for the rest of his days.

 www.elizabethsinclair.com

HAWKS MOUNTAIN -- Book #1 - 3/11

Audio version available now!

SUMMER ROSE - Book #2 - 1/12

FOREVER FALL -- Book #3 -- 10/12

WINTER MAGIC -- Book #4 -- WRD 11/13

Bell Bridge Books --print and e-book 

Author, Cindi Myers and Katie

Katie

To celebrate the release of Everything But a Dog on 12/11/12  I'm talking to people who work with, or have adopted, rescue animals!

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When I put out the call for adoption stories one of my good friends sent me a beautiful one.  Cindi Myers is not only a fantastic writers, she's an amazing woman.  And you can see what a beautiful heart she has in her story of Katie.

The Perfect Dog          

Losing a beloved family member tears a hole in your heart. The hole is no less small when that family member is a pet. When we said good-bye to Shelby, our darling Belgian Malinois, at the end of her battle with bladder cancer, my husband and I cried bitter tears. The house seemed so empty without her sweet presence. Our other dog, a Beagle mix named Snoopy, mourned the loss too.  He moped, picked at his food and was a sad pup indeed.

Though other people told us to give ourselves time to grieve and not to rush into anything, we decided adopting another dog was right for us. We missed having two dogs and Snoopy clearly needed a canine companion. Besides, with so many dogs in shelters needing a home, and us having the resources to provide that home, adopting seemed the right decision.

So one bright Saturday morning we loaded Snoopy in the car and headed to the Denver Dumb Friends League. After reviewing their website, I'd picked out a top three candidates of dogs we thought we'd like. We had criteria – under two years old, short hair and on the small side.  We toured the runs and submitted our choices. All three were either already adopted or in the process of being adopted. Unwilling to give up, we toured the runs again and stopped before a kennel containing a beautiful black Chow mix. She lay with her back to the glass, the picture of a sad, depressed dog. She was all wrong for us – too big and too hairy – but we were drawn to her nonetheless.  "Let's ask to see her," I said, and my husband agreed.

When the counselor led her into the meeting room a few minutes later, she gave a tentative wag of her plumed tail. I was so enchanted by her sweet face and gentle manner that it took me a few moments to notice she had only one eye. "She's been here a while," the counselor told us. "About a month. Let's take a look at her history."  

She'd been turned in to the shelter supposedly because she was "destructive and not house trained." Words that had probably deterred more than one potential adoptive family. Maybe they should have deterred me, but they didn't. "I'm home all day," I said. "I can work with her."

"She's nervous around strangers," the counselor said. "The evaluation almost ruled her a non-candidate for adoption, but we decided to give her a chance."  She didn't seem nervous around us; in fact, she was eagerly accepting our pats. "Let's have her meet Snoopy." We took them out to a play yard and brought Snoopy to meet her. After greetings, they began to play. Snoopy was livelier than we'd seen him in weeks.

"We'll take her."  We decided to name her Katie. We took her home, fully anticipating problems. What we got instead was a sweet, obedient, amazingly well-trained dog. Never a single "accident" in the house. Not so much as a tooth mark on anything. This was the destructive, non-house-broken dog in the shelter records?

The one thing they'd been right about was that she was nervous around strangers. We set about socializing her. It was a slow process. We began to suspect abuse in her past. It took fully two years before she stopped hiding when we came home after being gone a while, and she still sometimes hides when strangers visit, particularly very big men. But gradually, she grew more confident.  She needed us and we definitely needed her.       The dog the counselors had deemed almost un-adoptable was the perfect dog for us. She wasn't what we'd set out to find or what we'd expected, but some relationships are meant to be.       

Cindi Myers

The View From Here. "It takes a village to heal a broken heart."

www.CindiMyers.com

 Cindi: "This is a picture of me and Katie and Winston (Snoopy is in doggie heaven now.)

Winston is also a rescue, found wandering the streets of Denver at 6 months old. Our pet sitter volunteers at the shelter where he was -- The Max Fund and told us about him."