Dogs Gone By/Bear

This week the rescue story that made the AP rounds was about the challenges of adopting out Big Black Dogs. It's great people are becoming educated about rescue, and the reality is the large black mixed breed dogs are the hardest to adopt out, and in many many many cases don't get another chance at all.

It's funny now to look back on how naive I was when I met Bear. He'd been a street dog for as long as anyone could remember, in a part of town where dogs running loose is commonplace. He was well known and well liked and so someone took him in and contacted us in the hopes of giving him a better life. I went over to meet him and he seemed like a nice enough dog to me, so I agreed to foster him until he could find an adoptive home. Not only was Bear a BIG BLACK DOG, he was also a chow mix. Of the breeds people tend to be leery of, I'd say chows are pretty near the top. AND not only was he an all black, large-sized chow mix, he wasn't especially pretty either. What did I know? It seemed to me he was a nice dog and if that was enough for me, it would be enough for someone else too!

As it turned out, Bear had heartworm so he stayed here throughout his treatments and recovery. And then he stayed and stayed and stayed some more. It was looking like perhaps I had made a mistake in taking him on. That fall was the first local "Dog Days of September" festival, a whole day of dog fun. Almost all the area rescues had their dogs there. One man spent literally the whole day meeting dozens of dogs, carefully weighing which one would be the right choice for him. He came back to Bear over and over, and finally Bear became his dog. A year later they stopped to say hi. Bear acknowledged me with a hello, but he never took his adoring eyes off the man who chose him.