Rescue 2014: Year of the Dogs

Benny

Benny somehow got through the gates in the wee hours of the morning and snuggled himself in between Tanya and I.  We don't let any of the dogs sleep with us, usually, except for Zuma.  So hand it to Benny, he's a crafty little pudge ball!  I don't know how he did it this time, how he got through the gate and up the stairs and onto our bed to slip quietly between us without making a sound, unheard by Zuma who is usually quite attentive to movement in the house.  Earlier in the evening he'd gotten through before I'd fallen asleep so I brought him back downstairs and secured the gates.  This time, he was totally silent.  I turned over and there he was!  So I gave him his due credit for being so stealthy and allowed him to stay for the night.

Benny is our most recent rescue dog, who I am happy to report has stolen the heart of our friend CJ who was visiting from Halifax, and she is going to adopt him.  He's a real sweatheart, a chubby brown chihuahua with big brown eyes and long lashes, who loves to curl up with his people.  He is a very well balanced dog.  He was overweight when we got him, and even though we've been able to trim some fat off him but he's still a stocky, pudgy little guy.  Someone loved him at some point, but didn't bother to get him microchipped and so he wound up on death row at Lied Animal Foundation with some serious injuries.

Someone from our agency, 'A Home 4 Spot', found him there on death row, all torn up and unmedicated, waiting to die.  He had been attacked by another animal and had open wounds on both sides of his neck and his side was ripped open.  The Animal Foundation does not save animals like this.  Benny was in pain and waiting to die when a kind soul from our agency took it upon herself to pay his medical bills and save his life.  And now he is truly saved, and going to become a Maritimer!  Now to work out the logistics of getting him across the continent... I may be bringing him if things on the job front don't start looking up.

Otis & Breeze

It has been quite a year, the Year of the Dogs: 2014.  Since we started fostering, we have literally saved the lives of 14 dogs.  Two of those were rescue-fails... which is, we were fostering them, but then we ended up adopting them.  They are our two twin chee's (chihuahua's), Otis and Breeze.

Otis in his cave.  Only he can fit under the couch!

Otis impacted our family in a huge way.  We got him and his brother Troy as puppies, and once Troy (now Ziggy) was adopted, we just couldn't see Otis living anywhere other than here.  He is a whole lotta happy packed into a tiny little body, and we just needed to have him in our pack.  He is our little cheerleader!  Otis' energy is infectious, and he helps us bring around any dogs that come here and are fearful and need a friend.  Otis is friends with everyone.

Queen Breeze

Breeze is the most recent addition to our family, which brings our family pack up to 4 dogs.  They look almost the same, and they are inseperable.  They sleep together, play together, and fight like crazy!  She is a bit of a head case.  A real prima donna, drama queen.  She has been with us a long time and is not good out in public at the adoption events.  She doesn't really like strangers, and hates when her pack is seperated.  She's a screacher and whiner!  Considering the way she is out in public, and how well she and Otis get along, we decided to adopt her.  And much to our suprise, has also taken up the Alpha role in our house over Zuma!  Zuma has relented his position to her, and that is really something because Zuma has been the alpha for as long as we've had him.  But Breeze is a very needy, prissy, and jealous chihuahua.  I don't think Zuma sees her as a threat, just maybe as his whine-ass little sister.  He just lay back and said 'OK, whatever Breeze', and we've never seen him do that with any dog, ever.  She's special all right!  Our little Queen Breeze.

Miller, now called Rambo

My favorite dog this year was my little black chihuahua named Miller, now called Rambo.  Which is a fitting name, cause he's tough looking... but he's not tough at all.  He has an underbite, with a snaggletooth that juts out over his upper lip, and huge, expressive satelite-type ears and big globular brown eyes.  He never really fit into the pack, always the outsider on the fringes, watching.  He's a bit of a strange dog, very unsure of himself and was quite quickly demoted to bottom dog of the pack... except he would never accept that.  He and Zuma did not get along, and Zuma put him in his place many times before he eventually decided that Miller was no threat and began to ignore him completely.  Miller never gave up the fight though, right up til the last day he was challenging Zuma, following him around and posturing himself with threats like 'I'm gonna kill you Zuma!'  It was funny, except for the territorial battle that Miller was waging and marking his territory all over the house... including many instances of marking our bed and pillows.  So you think I'd hate him, right?  But no, he was a unique little dog, very special.  If Tim Burton had to cast a strange, halloween-cat-type-dog for a movie, Miller was it.  And even though he pissed on my pillow a couple times, I loved him and I wanted to adopt him.  He was with us for a full year, and it took a lot of rehabilitating to get him to become a social animal, to trust humans.  It took a really long time but he came around.  We didn't think he'd ever get adopted but luckily, he did.  And on our second visit to his new prospective home, he began initiating play with their crazy little dog, so we knew it was right!  We were so happy for him, we'd done a great job and Miller... Rambo would be OK!

My most enduring memory of Miller was his fascination with my guitar playing.  The other dogs scatter when I plug into the amp to play, and that was Miller's queu to come to my feet with a toy and want to play.  That was our time.  On occasion, the amp would really arouse his curiousity and he'd stare into it while I played... and he would turn to me and sing along!  I swear it!  He'd turn around to look at me, put his ears back and howl softly with his little outstretched 'O' shaped mouth!  Incredible!  Not only that, but if I was sitting and playing acoustic, he'd come right up beside me and stare up at me with those big brown eyes, listening intently.  A few times he even put his paw on my strumming hand and mimicked my movements.  He was fascinated by music.

Miller and I had a deep connection, I was his human and I took him under my wing to make sure that he knew he was part of my pack, even if he didn't quite fit in with the other dogs.  I'm glad Tanya talked me out of adopting him though, the territorial battle was too much to deal with.

Sophie LOVED the pool!

My biggest challenge of the year was the boxer/pitbull Sophie, whom I've written about here.  She caused a lot of chaos in our pack and turned our house on its end.  She'd never really had any stability of any kind, having been in the system for so long as a puppy.  She was special.  The bad kind of special, and needed a ton of training.  I have since come to know all kinds of boxers and pitbulls at the boarding/daycare facility where I work, so I now know I was ill-equipped to deal with her.  Some of those breeds have a predisposition for having a screw loose and need special consideration, and she exploited my inexperience pretty quickly and our house fell into chaos.  She was very needy and demanding, and as the biggest, strongest, and loudest dog in the house, I was a little afraid of what might come of it because the other dogs did not like having her here, especially Zuma.  After she bit my friend, we no longer felt safe in having anyone over to the house, so we were in social lockdown for a few months.  I went to a trainer to help me try to understand, and with that knowledge I set about a training program with her.  Lots and lots of exercise, and lots of things to keep her mind occupied all the time.  Luckily I had the time to deal with all this, because it took a lot of energy to keep her anxieties under control.  We worked together and found some common ground, and we eventually found a good family for her who promised to continue to work out her issues.  Last I heard, they had finally, FINALLY taken my advice and brought her to the trainer with whom I had worked, after she had bitten the husband.  Beautiful animal though.

I have been very fortunate to have the freedom of time to do all this volunteer work with 'A Home 4 Spot'.  It is very rewarding to take in these broken, discarded animals and rehabilitate them, give them back their dignity and confidence so they can feel happy and safe in our pack, and help find their forever homes.  When we hear the stories and get pictures of our fosters with their new families, that's what its all about!

Nice work, Joneseses!  And nice work to all you other volunteers and families out there who choose to adopt instead of supporting the Pets-for-Sale industry.  Those animals you see in the windows of pet stores will eventually end up on the kill-list if they are not taken, at which point organizations like ours will try to save them.  We can't save them all, but we should at least be trying to fix the problem and stem the bleeding, and shut down the storefront industry completely.  Pets are not commodities to be bought and sold and discarded when they're past their due date.  There are just too many people trying to make easy money off the lives of the innocents and flooding the market with unwanted animals.  It has to stop.

Thanks for reading.

TRJ

Pack Jones:  (clockwise)  Tanya, Zuma, Benny, Clancy, Miller, Otis, Breeze

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