I'm thankful for my senior dogs

Meet my Thansgiving emergency fosters Hero (L) and Piglet (R). I kept them (or should I say they kept me) from Wed-Saturday. Oh my gawd I forgot how awful puppies are. Not in a devious way, but the energy, the nipping, the humping, the pee, the poop! My thighs look like that of a battered woman. Every time they went outside to pee/poop, they would attach their humping little bodies to me shins. I could walk with them attached to me humping away. So annoying!

Hero was a houdini. No barrier I constructed could contain him other than a crate. He literally could climb his way out of anything. It made for tricky child rearing and cooking for the holidays.

Night #1 they stayed in my laundry room in an ex pen. Thanks to the dewormer it took me 1+ hour to clean my sh!t covered floor and poop splashed walls. Nasty. And of course they were so happy to see me in the morning they had a dance in it.

Mack and Bell did well given we let them interact only thru baby gates. No sense it having puppies eaten alive by Miss cranky pants and or broken by the bull in a china shop. Bell and Becks were also mad that mommy was trapped in the kitchen with the puppies because the second I was out of sight, Hero was making his escape. Oy.

By the end I had them on the road to potty training and doing well in a crate- no pee or poop accidents in the crate even at night! I was a little misty when I had to drop them off at the vet, but all in all I really don't understand how/why someone would want the daunting task of puppy rearing while having a small child. It's too much work, for real. Times 2 over a holiday weekend= I plum lost my mind. Trust me, I'm glad they were alive, but it would have been worth my paying to board them at the vet! I'm still worn out and feel like my entire house is sprinkled with poop particles.

Lesson learned- if you have small kids and you want a dog, skip the puppies and rescue a senior. Trust me.

Wordless Wednesday

Beauty and the butt

Miss Molly, gone too soon

2 weeks ago a friend emailed a photo of a dog looking so scared, so lonely, and so defeated in a cage at a high kill shelter. She looked like a bully mix (immediate death sentence here in the south) and had a broken leg (another way to move to the top of the euth list). I get a lot of email blasts of deserving dogs slated to die because their families gave them up. Most days I don't read them because I truly cannot handle it. I'm the kind of person who has nightmares when she watches the news. On this day, it was sent directly to me and I couldn't look away.

I began spreading the word about this poor girl looking for a safe harbor knowing every rescue is filled past capacity right now. Their bank accounts are past empty trying to save dogs who don't have broken legs. So I did something I don't usually do because he has a history of saying no. I asked my husband if we could save her life and foster her. If we didn't, she would be put to death on Friday the 13th. How cruel and unfair is that? Amazingly, my husband granted my Christmas wish and I had her pulled with the help of some veterna rescuers. We got her to the vet the next day and began the task of raising funds for her surgery and care. Molly was full of every worm imaginable, but miraculously was heartworm negative. It appeared she had been hit by a car, breaking her femur in half. X rays were taken that showed multiple pelvic fractures. Through it all, she was nothing but a big ball of love. If you have never felt the joy of a bully kiss, then you are truly missing out. The vet decided to rest her, feed her, love her, and give her antibiotics to help the surgery go a little smoother. 1 week later Molly was slated for surgery.

On Friday the 20th of November, Molly had a pin placed to hold her broken leg together. The surgery was a little more complicated than expected, but she did great and went into recovery just fine. While in recovery, Molly crashed. The vet and her staff worked for 30 minutes to bring her back, but she was gone. We were all devastated. Many strangers were rooting for Molly and had dedicated money to her care. And so I went breaking the bad news, devastated that I had not even had the chance to touch my never was foster dog. All I have is the picture you see here.

In rescue, you win some and you lose some. It's the ones you lose that you remember the most they say. I will remember Molly forever and I think I have found a way for others to as well. All donations made to the vet are going to remain at the vet to care for the next hard luck case that might be dead otherwise; pay it forward. All donations made to Molly's paypal account are being passed onto Stormy, a dog very much in need. Stormy was drug behind a moving vehicle and suffered tremendous wounds. Without funds to continue covering her care, her rescue was considering euthanizing her. Well, Molly deserved a shot despite being broken and so does Stormy. You can read all about Stormy here: http://thestormystory.blogspot.com/
(but I warn you, you had better have a box of tissues next to you)

So in the spirit of Stormy, find a way to pay it forward this Thanksgiving. What might feel like the smallest of contributions could very well change someone's life.