Introducing Scamp

Koko's picture on CraigsList

]scamp: noun

1. an unscrupulous and often mischievous person; rascal; rogue; scalawag.

2. a playful, mischievous, or naughty young person; upstart.

Her name used to be Koko. When I saw her picture on Craigslist, I fell in love with her cute scruffy face and her big smile. I immediately contacted the owner and offered to take her as a foster dog. I expected that the owner would have several offers for this adorable dog, so I prepared myself for disappointment. But instead, I got a call from the owner, and she had only had a couple of people contact her about Koko, and those people had not followed through, so I was the lucky winner! At least that was how I thought of it at the time. I immediately shared her picture with anyone who would look, and anxiously waited for several hours before I was able to get her. I had not even met her yet, and I was in love.

Koko’s owner had a large family and due to losing their home, they had to move into a small rental property with no options to keep their dog. They loved her and wanted what was best for her, and I assured them I would take great care of her and find her the perfect home. I had no idea how she would do with other dogs – she had lived with an older dog and was said to be good with dogs but an “alpha”. I also had no idea how she would do with cats. I did know she was good with small children, which would help her get adopted. I figured between her perfect size (28 pounds) and cute looks, she’d be a very quick adoption. I should have known better.

Koko’s name was changed to Scamp for a reason. When I first brought her home, everything went great. She was already house-trained and crate-trained. She loved all the other dogs. She did chase the cats, but at least she didn’t try to eat them. More than once I considered keeping her. But I knew that once she settled in, I would start to see more bad habits appear. And appear they did.

I’ve found that Scamp has a very serious behavior problem. It’s found in dogs of all breeds – especially puppies -- but the Terrier breeds in particular seem to have this problem. It’s known as enthusiasm. It can cause uncontrolled joy, and outbursts of energy resulting in running, jumping, or otherwise acting out. I fear it will take months to teach Scamp to stop jumping on me and every other person she meets.

As an experienced dog foster mom and an amateur trainer, I’ve worked with various behavior problems ranging from extremely shy dogs to resource guarders to separation anxiety issues. But no behavior problem is harder for me to work with than enthusiasm. I just can’t bring myself to be stern with dogs who are so darn happy! I know it’s for their own good – most people don’t like dogs who can’t control themselves – but when I see them running and jumping and enjoying life, I just melt. I try not to let them walk all over me (too much) but it’s a constant battle. I see Scamp and I just want to let her throw herself into my arms and lick my face! In fact I admit to teaching her to jump into my arms on cue (with the excuse that I can then teach her to ONLY do it on cue) even though the only reason I did it was because it’s so much fun to have her jump into my arms.

So Scamp may never be well-trained, at least while she’s with me, but I don’t mind. I love her enthusiasm. And when I found that she can jump my six-foot-privacy-fence, a small part of me was relieved that it would make her that much harder to adopt out. Most people don’t want very high energy dogs, and those who do, don’t want a high-energy dog that can escape pretty much any fence out there. So I’ll be taking Scamp to the adoption event this weekend, but if anyone inquires about her, I’m going to be sure to let them know about her fence jumping and other bad habits. Because the truth is, looking back at when I considered myself lucky for getting Koko, I realize now that I wasn’t just the lucky winner, I was the Luckiest Winner There Ever Was. She brightens my days, and although I still haven’t decided that I can keep her forever, I’m going to enjoy every second of fostering her while she is here.

Thor the Dock-Diving Burglar

One month ago, I wrote about Thor and how he broke into my house by pushing his way through a perfectly good window screen. I thought about putting bars over all my windows to keep burglars like Thor out, but I did not take such drastic action. And now I regret it.

Thor

My house is built on a hill, and when Thor came in the house via the back window, he was level with the back yard. The windows in the front of the house are at least six or eight feet above the front yard, so there was no need to worry about burglars like Thor -- or so I thought. But when I left Thor and the other dogs in the house and went onto the front porch to change a light bulb, all of a sudden I heard a loud CRASH and then a louder rustling noise. I looked over, and there was Thor. This time, instead of breaking INTO the house, he broke OUT of the house, and ruined yet another window screen in the process. Fortunately he fell into a large evergreen bush and was not injured. In fact, he looked quite proud of himself as he walked up to me. I wonder if he thinks I’m playing hide-and-go-seek with him!

So I’ve learned two things from this. First, I believe Thor would make an excellent Dock Diving champion in the Heavyweight division. And second, I really need to stop leaving windows open when Thor is around.

Update on Noelle

I haven’t talked much about Noelle recently. She is my deaf, mascara-wearing, elevator-riding, coffee-table-standing, contest-winning, rough-n-tumble dog. Over a year ago, I uploaded a video of her to YouTube that generated disparaging remarks about lazy owners who don’t train their dogs. I have worked diligently since then to train Noelle, and a few weeks ago I made another video of her in the same situation to see if she has shown any improvement.

I am pleased to report that she seems much improved – her intonation is clear, her phrasing (breath between notes) is not as awkward, and the intensity she brings to her performance is brilliant. In my possibly biased opinion, I feel that a dog with Noelle’s vocal talent is rare, and that her training has really paid off over the past year. Wouldn’t you agree?

Cows, Socks, and Flower

You may remember my fascination with cows.  In fact, when I first moved to the country and ended up with a field full of cows living next door, I had a lot of questions.  I've been here over a year now, and finally - FINALLY - I found someone to answer my questions about cows.  Thanks to Debbie, a blogger and a cattle rancher in Kansas, who explained to me the reason that Ziggy and my next door neighbors will most likely never be best friends.  Debbie recently won the "America's Farmers Farm Mom of the Year" award for 2012.  Congratulations Debbie!  Be sure to stop by and visit her blog for a look at life on a cattle ranch, and to have all of your cow questions answered.

In addition to learning about cows, I've also been learning more about cats.  And to help with my cat education, I brought home two new foster cats a few weeks ago.  I met Socks while stopping by my neighbor's house to discuss which animals they were wanting me to rehome.  As we stood there talking, a small brown tabby cat came walking straight up to me and began weaving around my legs.  I picked her up, and she immediately began purring.   I hadn't planned to take home any cats that day, but when I met Socks I just fell in love. 


Socks

In addition to Socks, the neighbors pointed out a very small black and white cat who they also wanted to rehome.  They had named her Skunk, because she had a white stripe down her back and did somewhat resemble a skunk.  However I was concerned about trying to find a home for a cat with the name Skunk - people may think she smelled bad!  So I renamed her Flower ("You can call me Flower if you want to!" - name that movie) and brought her home too.  She is every bit as sweet as Socks, and she doesn't smell bad at all.   

Flower

Update:  Since Socks and Flower came to my house a few weeks ago, they've been spayed, vaccinated, microchipped, and all that good stuff, and then they started going to adoption events.  Within a week, Flower was adopted and Socks has now moved up to PetSmart where I hope she will quickly be adopted as well. 

Ziggy Falls In Love

I took this picture of Ziggy, and then shared it on his Facebook page to show how excited he was to have reached 300 friends.

But I have to admit that I used some extra motivation to get Ziggy to look so excited. It’s not that he wasn’t excited about having so many friends – really, he’s overjoyed. But to truly see that expression in his face, I had to show him something more concrete than just some numbers on a screen.

There's only one thing that can make Ziggy look this hopeful. 

And this goofy!

That one thing – the true way to Ziggy’s heart – is this:

Well, a steak might do it too.  Or pretty much any kind of food. 


"Can I have a new bone each time I get another 100 friends?!"



If you want to help Ziggy earn another bone, please “like” him on Facebook, and ask your friends to “like” him too!



Kitten Season Strikes Again

When I first started volunteering with animal rescue, and heard the term “kitten season”, it made me smile. I imagined kittens everywhere – and who doesn’t love adorable, entertaining kittens?! The more experienced volunteers seemed to dread the mention of kitten season, but not me. Kittens are so cute, they are easy to find homes for, and they are a lot of fun! What was there to dread?

Now, after turning down request after request for help with kittens who are going to be euthanized because there are just too many of them – now I too dread kitten season. Seeing a well cared for and happy kitten is fun – seeing dead and dying kittens, not so much. There are many low-cost options to have pets spayed and neutered, to prevent unwanted litters of kittens, but many people don’t know about these programs. I had helped some neighbors get vouchers to have their cats and dogs fixed, and they told me about another neighbor who also had too many cats. I suggested they pass on my name and I would try to get the cats into a shelter to be adopted, and they informed me that would be preferable to the normal method of dealing with too many cats – which is to take them out in the woods and shoot them. So when a friend of the neighbor showed up with a medium sized dog crate that was full of cats, I just said I’d take all of them, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with them. They said there were adults and kittens in the crate. I asked how many, and they had no idea. They also told me about three more cats that they planned to keep, none of which were fixed and one of whom is pregnant and should have more kittens any day. We made arrangements to get them spay/neuter vouchers for those cats as well, and I’m sure I’ll end up with the new kittens once they are weaned as well. Did you know that a momma cat can get pregnant while she is still nursing her previous litter? It is no surprise that so many cats and kittens are being killed each day due to an overpopulation of cats. Rescues and shelters can only do so much, but until people stop allowing their pets to have unwanted babies, there will always be more kittens than we can save.
So enough preaching – now in case you’re wondering how many cats turned out to be in the carrier – well, I was wondering too! I tried to count them, but they were lying on top of each other and it was hard to see them all. So I took them to my friend Bev’s house so she could deworm them and put on flea medication and give the sickest kittens a vitamin shot. While she was working so hard to help these cats, I left and went to lunch with my mom. I still feel guilty about that! But after lunch I called Bev and asked the question I had wanted to know – how many cats were there in that one medium-sized crate?

Bev told me there were four adults (two male, two female) and nine kittens. And she said it just like that – like it was no big deal at all. “NINE kittens?!”, I asked. Surely I had not heard correctly. But yes, nine kittens was the correct answer. And suddenly I found myself right in the middle of Kitten Season. The local shelter was kind enough to take three of the adult cats, and I’ll keep the mom and nine kittens at my house until they’re big enough to be adopted. I haven’t named any of the kittens yet, mostly because I haven’t had time to think of nine kitten names that go together, but also because I have no idea if they are males or females. It’s tough to tell with five-week-old kittens! Kittens must be at least eight weeks and weigh at least two pounds before they can be spayed/neutered, and that must happen before they can be adopted. So it will be at least three more weeks before the nine kittens are ready to go to the shelter. In the meantime, I’m enjoying cute and playful kittens, while bemoaning the huge mess that kittens make. I’ve had to turn down several more requests for help with kittens in the past few days, so if you too would like to foster some adorable kittens until they’re old enough to be adopted, please contact me!



A very patient mom feeds some of her nine kittens.





The kittens are starting to eat softened solid food.



This is one of the runts of the litter.



This one has a dirty face after eating/bathing in canned food.



The kittens are so small and still have blue eyes!



I think this one is glaring at me for interrupting playtime.



Irresistible!



Skittles the Micro Dog

A month ago, I received an inquiry on Skittles, my foster Papillon.  The inquiry came from Jen, a woman who lives in Louisiana.  Usually I don't consider out of state applications, because if the adoption doesn't work out and the adopter decides they don't want to bother getting the dog back to me, the dog ends up in a shelter somewhere very far away, and may not have a happy ending.  But every once in awhile I decide it is worth it to take a chance on an out of state adoption, and so far those adoptions have all worked out great.  In this case, Jen had an easy time convincing me to give her a shot.  Not only is she a professional dog trainer, but she also has family in my area and visits often, so she should be able to bring Skittles back to me without a problem if it became necessary.  The main reason that I agreed to her adopting Skittles, is because Jen competes in disc dog competitions around the country, and she was looking for a small dog to compete in a special category called "micro dogs".

Skittles the Micro Dog

It sounded so cool - I was fostering a micro dog!  Until that moment I never realized how much I wanted a micro dog - especially since I'd never heard of a micro dog until that moment.  But there I was - the proud foster parent of a future micro dog disc champion - and I was so excited for Skittles.  Of course, there is no guarantee that Skittles can actually become a disc dog, but I have high hopes.  Skittles is in many ways a typical Papillon.  According to Cesar's small dog breeds gallery, Papillons are intelligent, athletic, playful and energetic.  Skittles is all of those, and she loves to play with toys and is very food motivated.  I think she'll be much happier having a job to do than she would be just sitting around a house being a pet dog.  So a few weeks ago, Jen came up and met Skittles, and took her home on a trial adoption, to see if she can become the amazing micro dog champion that I imagine her to be.

Yard Work

We've had a lot of rain here, which means my grass keeps growing faster than I can keep up with it.  So this weekend I called in reinforcements.

"This grass is much too tall."

"And just look at all of these weeds!"

My dogs Noelle and Remi came to visit, and I had hoped they would help with the yard work while they were here.  However, Remi kept laying down on the job.

"Just taking a short break"

 And Noelle seemed too busy taking notes on the height of the grass to bother actually eating any grass.

"Much too tall over here, too."

In the end, I was disappointed to find that I'd have to do all the yard work myself.

Ziggy's Advertising Campaign

Ziggy has never been accused of being too humble.  In his mind, he’s not “just a dog”, he’s ZIGGY!  So it’s no surprise that he insisted on a “Wall of Fame” on his webpage.  I tried to convince him that nobody likes a braggart, but he refused to listen.  He seems sure that if the rest of the world will just realize how special he is, they will be lining up to adopt him.  Since I absolutely refused to let him brag about the number of common household items that he has chewed up, or the amount of kibble he can eat in one sitting, he had to settle for bragging about his few awards and media appearances.  I said to him – Ziggy, don’t you think listing all the websites that have shared your desire for a home just makes you seem desperate?  But again, he pretended he couldn’t hear me.  So I gave in, and helped Ziggy add a new page to his website.  Now Ziggy is asking me to contact even more blogs and websites to ask for help in sharing his desire for a home.  If you have a blog or website and share Ziggy’s story and his need for a home, please let him know (his e-mail is Ziggy@adoptziggy.com) so he can add it to his list.   Or as he so proudly refers to it – his Wall of Fame.

Fostering - Can't Do It Alone

After being out of work for four months, I finally got a new job. I am working as a contractor at Monsanto Corp, and although I’ve been there less than a week, I’ve already started to feel comfortable. This could be because I changed the background picture on my monitor to this:

I did that just in case one of my new co-workers walks by, sees his picture, and says “what a great dog”, so I can say “he’s for adoption” and they can say “well, I’ve been looking for a deaf pit bull who loves to chew, always pushes boundaries, and wants to be an only pet”. And I’ll say “you won’t be disappointed with Ziggy” and then they’ll live happily ever after. Hey, it could happen.
The hardest part about going back to work is the amount of time it takes away from my fosters. The office is over an hour away from where I live, so I end up being gone for almost twelve hours a day, five days a week. Not only do my foster pets miss me (or at least my ability to open doors and throw tennis balls) but I also no longer have time for all the vet appointments and other errands that I did while I was out of work. Fortunately, I am only one volunteer in an organization made up of many other volunteers. When I shared the news that I was going back to work, many people have stepped forward to help. Bev took Thor to the vet for me, and offered help with future vet visits. Karen took home Salem, a foster cat who just had his leg amputated (more about him later), so she could take care of all his medical needs while he recovers. Lynsey is taking Ziggy to the vet for me tomorrow. Even the local shelter is helping out – they took in a dog that my neighbors found, and got her vet work done before she comes back to me later this week. They’re also going to take Jefferson for awhile, because he has so much energy, he needs more play-time and attention than I can give now that I’m working. At the shelter he’ll get to go outside to the play yard and play with other dogs and get attention from the volunteers. I couldn’t survive without all of these wonderful people stepping forward to help.

So now I’m gainfully employed, and no longer have to worry about how I’m going to make my house payment or afford gas for my car. I’ll soon be able to buy more chew toys for Ziggy and maybe even get a riding lawnmower someday (such lofty goals). I’m hoping to eventually hire someone to come out to the house a few days a week to play with the dogs while I’m at work. Until then, I’ll have to cut back on the number of fosters I can take in, but I’ll keep fostering. After all, with foster dogs like Bogey the Extremely Fearful and Partially Hairless Dog, Charlie the No-Longer-Hairless But Still Fearful of Men, People with Hats and People with Sunglasses Dog, and Ziggy the Waiting-For-Two-And-One-Half-Years And Still Not Adopted Dog, I am going to be fostering dogs for a very long time.

In Memory of Shelby

Today I lost my girl.  Shelby had several more seizures, and the vet finally said there was nothing more that could be done for her.  She is now at peace - no more suffering.  Everyone who met Shelby seemed to fall in love with her.  She was only three years old, and she had such a short life.  But she brought a lot of joy to others in those three short years.

The first time I saw a picture of Shelby was when someone posted her on my Facebook page.  She was in an animal shelter and they were trying to find a rescue for her because she was deaf.

I didn't fall in love with her right away.  I was nervous about taking in a new dog without being able to evaluate her first, and it didn't help when the lady who transported her to me called to ask if I had a crate because she was awful in the car.  I didn't have a crate, so fashioned a harness for her and hoped for the best.  All the way on the 30 minute drive home, she bounced around as far as she could in her harness and barked constantly at every passing car.  She was so excited, and I was a little bit nervous of her.  After all, a large dog that I had just met was barking in my ear and lunging past me trying to get to any cars that came by.  I wondered what I had gotten myself into.  Then we got home and she calmed down as soon as the car stopped.  I took her inside and introduced her to the other dogs.  She was so easy-going.  A couple of the dogs were being rude and pushy, and she just ignored them.  I was very relieved, since my biggest fear was that she wouldn't do well with the other dogs.

Within a few days, I started getting really attached to Shelby.  It wasn't just that she was such an easy dog to care for, or that she was so affectionate.  It wasn't just because she had one brown eye and one blue eye - a combination I love.  It wasn't even just because she was such a sweet girl and so eager to please.  I couldn't define it, but within a week I was totally in love with her.  I so much wanted for her to have a long, wonderful life.  I connected with Shelby in a way that I do with very few dogs, and having to say good-bye to her today was heartbreaking.  But I am relieved that she is no longer suffering, and I am glad that I got to know her and love her for the short time that she was here.

Shelby 2008 - 2012