Lost Dog

I love my dogs of course, but I don't consider them to be my kids or the same as my own children. I didn't give birth to them. I can't hold actual conversations with them. I don't wonder who they'll be or how they'll turn out as adults. I realize I will most likely outlive all of them. Still I do worry when I send one of my fosters off to a new home, in much the same way I feel when I send my kids off to a new situation: I hope they will be happy and well cared for.

I don't think losing a dog is comparable to losing a child. I can't imagine a worse hell on earth than a missing child. I'm finding out though, a missing dog isn't easy either. Haven escaped on her "trial run" adoption. Long story short, she's been loose in Marblehead for a week now. We went last Sunday and looked for her and put up signs. We didn't hear anything for a week, then over the weekend got a few calls from people who saw her, so I went back out today and walked around for almost 3 hours. And didn't see her at all.

Marblehead's a really small town and she seems to be staying in the same general location. Still you can only walk up and down and around and through people's yards and look along the lake and under bushes and in abandoned garages so many times over and over until it's clear you're going to drive home again without her. I don't know how long she can stay out there like this. I'm sure she can get water and some food. I can't imagine how scared she must be. I don't know what will happen. I'm an hour and a half's drive away so even if I could leave as soon as someone calls, she's going to be gone. And I can't keep driving out there. All I can do is hope she lets someone else catch her.

I've said it before--even when it wasn't actually about me personally--that it's so unfair that the people who do everything they can to find their dog and get it safely back home so oftentimes never see him or her again. And then the pounds are full of dogs with owners who never put up a sign or ran an ad or gave the dog a second thought once it left the yard....

How many dogs do you have? Haven

I'm planning on making this a regular feature, to highlight some of my own dogs and some of my fosters. Haven probably wouldn't have gone first but as it turns out, she's in a trial run in a possible adoptive home, and like any over-protective mom, I can't help but worry about how she's doing.

Haven was confiscated by the courts for abuse. Dogs aren't held in high esteem in the county I work with the most. It's not at all unusual for a dog to spend its whole life chained outside, or left in a tiny kennel run with a dilapidated dog house. And so I have to assume that if the police and then the courts intervened, Haven's life was quite wretched even by their standards.

I love this picture because she looks so fierce but she isn't really. Her mom was a Rottweiler and it looks like she has some kind of shepherd too, perhaps Aussie. I chose her name because I thought it was pretty and fits a dog from her background. After I discovered Haven Kimmel's books, I was kinda pleased I already had a dog named after her. It's not like Molly, where every 6th dog has my name.

After months in our home, Haven has settled into our routine just fine. She has never had a problem with any of the other dogs, doesn't get into any trouble (well, unless you're a cat or a rat, which is another whole story.) She is so submissive and so grateful to be treated kindly that if we even look at her, she wags her tail so hard that half her body wags along too. Still it's not easy being Haven. She is afraid of everything. For the first years of her life, what little experience she had was frightening. Now the most important thing we can do is have patience and give her time. With dogs like Haven, sooner or later someone will come along who sees something special and who is willing to take on the job of teaching them to enjoy the life dogs were meant to have.

They all really do find their place, if they're given enough time for that to happen. Sometimes it takes a few tries before it finally works out. People will say they understand the effort it will take and then change their minds within days of living with a dog who bolts at the slightest movement or has to be left on a leash and nearly pulled back into the house after going outside. I suppose in a way it sounds cruel to put a dog through these kinds of changes, knowing how very frightened she will be. The alternative however is worse, and for a dog who just desperately wants to be loved, how can you not give them every possible chance towards that outcome?

The couple who would like to adopt Haven had an abused dog before. He had to be out to sleep recently and when they were ready again for another dog, they chose Haven. They spent some time with her first, and worked towards winning her over. Yesterday I met them again and put her in their car to go home, hopefully to stay. She was so scared. It really is heartbreaking, to have to hand her over like that, knowing she doesn't understand. It has to be this way though because I cannot keep them all. And she deserves her own special home where she is cherished. Now all I can do is hold my breath and wait to see how it turns out. More to come soon.

I need to get rid of my dog!

Aside from all of the dogs that end up on borrowed time at the dog pounds around here, and the non-stop requests from people hoping someone will take their dog, responsible rescue always takes their adopted dogs back, for any reason.

There are legitimate reasons for having to give up a beloved pet. Most of those reasons are also used by people who just want to get rid of their dog but are hoping to seem like better people than they are. Take allergies, for example. I had one foster dog years ago whose family tried everything for over a year after one of the children developed allergies. They were heartbroken when they finally had to accept nothing was working, and he had to be returned. Their dog was exceptionally nice, obviously much loved and well cared for. Contrast that to one application I received from a family who answered the question: Have you ever given a dog away? with: Yes we had to give our last dog to the Humane Society because of my wife's allergies. We would like to adopt this dog because we realized she wasn't allergic to the dog after all. Um, what?! That's the story. She started having allergy symptoms so the FIRST thing they did was to get rid of their dog! But it's OK now! After the dog left and she was still sneezing she went to a doctor and found out she wasn't really allergic to him at all! And they couldn't understand why I wouldn't adopt to them.

Foreclosure and the economy are taking a toll on pets, too. It's understandable that if you're losing your home, sadly enough you might have to give up your dog, too. Still would you wait until say, 48 hours before you're out the door to look around and realize the dog needs somewhere to go? OK! We have all the dishes and knick knacks packed away and friends are coming with a truck on Monday. Cousin Mary is taking the couch and the dining room table, and OH NO! What are we going to do with Buddy?! Because those last minute calls happen all the time.

Death or serious illness are oftentimes genuine reasons for having to give up a dog. Those situations can be so sad, as if there weren't enough loss for everyone to deal with, the dog needs to go to a new home as well. Still, my all-time favorite dog return story was a woman who needed to return her dog because she was battling a life-threatening round of cancer. In those situations of course our hearts go out to the owners and the dog. Her dog was an older mixed breed, uneasy in new situations and with strangers, and so she was in foster care for a long time. Many months later we got an email from her owner. It explained who she was, and that she had finished up treatments and was doing much better. She'd been keeping an eye on the website and was sad to see Sadie was still not adopted. She was sure though we would be able to find a good home for her soon, because she's such a great dog. THEN she asked if it would be OK if she adopted one of the puppies we had available at that time. Her husband had never really bonded with Sadie but they really miss having a dog and so they think it would be better to just start over with someone new. Just imagine the look on my face when I read that one. So, your dog is still without a forever home and you know how much she has been struggling with the change but you come to us again to get a new dog?

It's sometimes a real struggle to avoid becoming jaded about the people we deal with to help the dogs we love.

Still I've found one happy ending or a thanks so much for our wonderful dog email makes up for a whole lot. More on those stories soon.

Look at this handsome guy!

Here's another of the throwaway dogs I see at the pound. 2 years old, an all but perfect dog. He's housetrained, gets along great with other dogs, needs some manners reinforcement but has had basic training. The story is his owner had to move back home to care for her ailing mother and didn't have room where they live to keep him. (I can't count how many times I've heard that story. Maybe once in a while it's really true.) And I can't find a rescue with room to take him. If a dog like this can't get in, what chance does a mere shepherd MIX have?

No good deed goes unpunished

OK before we get to the actual topic, I need to explain where I live. It's a rural area on the edge of a small town. Lots are at least an acre and wooded. I have lived here for 20 years and have been involved in dog rescue (and owned multiple dogs) for 5. Within the last 2 years I have acquired new neighbors on both sides. I'll freely admit I am not an especially social person and I did not make any attempt to get to know them. They're both younger families with younger kids, and even if I were a get-together-for-coffee-with-the-neighbors type, I can't imagine what we would have in common.

I'll also say for as many dogs as I have, I do try to be considerate. I do not leave my dogs outside when we're not here. I do bring any barking dogs into the house as soon as I notice they're barking. Still, dogs bark. That's just the fact of the matter. They bark outside if they see something they believe I need to know about. They bark inside when we come home or if someone comes to the door. Anyone who does rescue knows what that is like. (On the phone we all hang up when we get to the door. "I'm home now, gotta go, dogs will be barking in a minute.")

So this evening, one of my neighbors came over to inform me he has had it with my dogs. He has called the cops several times so they can hear them barking. According to him, the neighbors on the other side have had it too. With a wave of a hand, he implied perhaps the whole road has had it, maybe the whole county, who knows. He paid a lot of money for his house. Apparently at this time there is nothing they can do, so he has a friend on council and they are going to put through a new noise ordinance that addresses barking dogs. I have no idea why he felt the need to give me this heads up, although I suspect it was so I would know why it came about and who was behind it.

So basically, I'm fucked. This is a small town and I am nobody so I am going to get nowhere trying to fight this. If I somehow succeed in one aspect, they will come after me from another. It's not like dog rescue is a valued venture anyhow. If it were, that would suggest people value dogs, and judging by how many dogs we need to save, that's obviously not the case, right? I can look at it from every angle, and it's pretty clear my only options are going to be getting rid of my dogs or moving. Even if I cut back on the dogs I have here (and that would necessitate putting several of them to sleep because they are not adoptable) the dogs I own bark. They're dogs. I don't know how to keep dogs from barking entirely. The bottom line is this is what I do. I rescue dogs. Perhaps it is hell to live next to me. I can think of many many other situations that will be just as bad if not worse. And I suspect this man will be aggravated at any one of those as well. (And I'm spiteful enough to hope whoever does end up living here next is every bit as annoying as I am now.) That doesn't change what we're dealing with now.

I really don't mind moving. I was planning to before the real estate market took a dive. Still right now I am in no way at all able to or prepared to, and the logistics of how that will occur are beyond me at this time. I guess all I can do now is wait and see what happens next. I dunno how much time I'll have before the ax falls, or how drastically they'll push this. I do know that this is my life now and a few disgruntled neighbors will not change that. We'll find a way through this and it will work out for the better in the end.

What was I saying about labs?

I picked up a couple of dogs this week, a beagle and a mixed breed puppy. There are 2 more older lab-mix puppies there (1 pictured here) I should be able to find someone to take before it's too late.
There's also a couple of adult lab mixes, maybe more since I was there a few days ago. Nice dogs, really, just nothing special, and so they don't have a chance unless by some miracle someone calls to claim them. One big guy has every strike against him. Big but not so big he'd get interest in the way the extra large dogs do. He'a almost all lab but with long hound dog ears, so he misses out on being a big-headed purebred lab. And he's older, not ancient but 5 or 6, which is usually more years than most people want to take on. It's not his fault at all that he'll most likely end up dead. It's just the reality of the situation. There's too many dogs just like him crammed into every pound everywhere. Sometimes I'll try, send out a bunch of emails, go the extra mile. It rarely works out, rescues can't create room when there's none available. And sometimes I'm just tired. I don't want to go back and see any of them again. It's best if I just put them out of my mind, and move onto whoever will be taking that kennel next week.