Catching Up

Between the holidays and recovering from a cold, I have fallen way behind. So here's a quick update on everyone, and going forward I will do my best to keep up with new pictures and stories!

When I last posted, I had ten dogs at my house. As of right now, I still have ten, but not the same ten! I still have Lacey and her five puppies, now named Nike (chocolate female), Puma (smallest black female), Buster Brown (black male), Teva (yellow female), and Avia (largest black female). The puppies continue to be brilliant and extremely advanced for their age of less than five weeks old! They already have distinct personalities. Nike is the most vocal and demanding - she's like the big sister to the rest. Puma is the quiet one, content to sit back and watch what is going on. Buster Brown is the sweet one who is the most affectionate of the bunch. Teva is the adorable one who likes to be in the middle of whatever is going on, and Avia is the hungry one who is always first to the food bowl! The pups are growing quickly and new pictures will be coming soon.

Ziggy is still at my house. He's almost completely destroyed his bachelor pad, including destuffing the dog bed, finding and eating several dewormer pills (20 times the dose he should have had - of course it had no effect on him), and managing to burn out every lightbulb except one. I'm not sure how he pulled that last one off, but I'm sure it was something he did. He received a wonderful Christmas gift from Blueberry's human, and I'll tell you all about it as soon as I download the pictures off of my camera.

Lucky the deaf dog is also still at my house. He actually went out on a trial adoption. It lasted a week, which is seven days longer than I expected. He was returned for wanting to eat the bird, among other things. Poor Lucky isn't having the best luck. Fortunately the bird was uninjured.

Allie the extremely energetic Akita mix was also adopted. She's currently on day 5 of the trial period. This is 5 days longer than I expected! If there is any dog out there that needs a home (besides Ziggy), Allie is the one. So I am praying that this trial adoption works out... and I'm considering changing my phone number just to be sure. Just kidding.

Natasha the extremely-obsessed-with-me Poodle mix also is out on a trial adoption. She has a lot better chance of success, but being that she's in a home where I don't live, there's no guarantee. This is the dog that has gone to two different homes for at least three weeks each, then come back to me and never even looked back at her previous caretaker. And yet if I take two steps away from her at an adoption event, she goes nuts. It's kind of scary.

On the other hand, Libby the deaf JRT sees me at an adoption event and looks right through me.  She's still at another foster home, where her foster mom reports she gets the same treatment.  This does not make it easy for Libby to get adopted since she ignores anyone and everyone equally, but at least it makes me feel better that it isn't just me that she treats this way.  And it sort of balances out Natasha's behavior. 

Trooper the Black Lab I found on the side of the road is back at my house now too.  He's recovered from his broken spine due to being hit by a car, and he is now available for adoption.  Trooper is a good dog and gets along with everyone except Lucky, so currently I have to keep Ziggy, Lucky, and Trooper apart from each other at all times. 

The only other dog that Trooper didn't get along with was another deaf white dog named Ozzie.  I temporarily fostered him for a few days, and Trooper and Ozzie became mortal enemies during this time.  Ozzie is a Westie mix we think, and he's the cutest little dog who is a typical terrier and willing to take on dogs three times his size.  He is now back in his original foster home and I have to admit I miss the little guy!  He is available for adoption and hopefully will find a forever home soon! 

I also have another male foster dog named Jax.  Jax was adopted out as a puppy and recently returned because he didn't do well with children.  Since Ozzie also didn't like Jax, Jax came to my house instead of going back to his original foster home.  I really like Jax - he's friendly and well-behaved and happy and easygoing and smart.  He gets along with all the other dogs too.  I'm going to take his picture one of these days and get him up on the website so he can get adopted.  Sometime soon. 

As if these five adults and five puppies weren't enough, I recently received some sad news that two of my previous foster dogs are being returned.  The first is Nosey, the blind Beagle puppy I fostered in October.  The family who adopted him have to move out of state into an apartment that doesn't allow dogs, so Nosey, now named Radar, will be coming back to me sometime soon.  The other return is Bogey, the very shy dog.  He has been in a foster-to-adopt situation for two months but the foster family finally decided that another dog would be a better fit for their home. So Bogey returns on Saturday.  In an ironic twist, I just realized that the same blog post where I introduced Bogey last February, I also announced Allie's original adoption.  Now I'm announcing Bogey's return and Allie's second potential adoption almost one year after that original post. 

If you've managed to read this far, thanks for hanging in there, and I promise to provide shorter posts in the future, along with more pictures.  You're welcome. 

Double the Fosters...Double the Fun?

12/4/12
On Thursday night I had five foster dogs at my house (Ziggy, Allie, Lucky, Natasha and Lacey).  On Friday night I had ten foster dogs at my house.  Turns out when the vet said that Lacey's pups were due in 20 days, she was off by 18 days.  I came home Friday night and found Lacey on my bed, surrounded by her new babies.  Yep, she had her puppies on my bed.  This was one of those things no one warned me about when I signed up to foster. 

Fortunately there were no complications, and Lacey took care of everything perfectly.  All five puppies are healthy and doing well.  In spite of being a very young first-time mom, Lacey knew exactly what to do, and is handling the whole thing much more calmly than I am.  Originally Lacey was supposed to go to a special neonate foster home to have her puppies, and they'd all stay there together for four-to-six weeks before coming back to my house.  However, since she already had the puppies and everything went so smoothly, I decided it wasn't worth it to put her through the stress of moving to a new place.  So now I get to watch the puppies grow up every day.  And this is only day four, but I'm pretty sure they've noticeably gotten bigger already.  Here is a picture of the pups on the day they were born. 

There are three all-black pups (one boy and two girls), one chocolate pup (girl), and one yellow pup (girl).  Now I need some help coming up with names!  I like the idea of the shoe theme (to go with Lacey the mom).  Any suggestions?

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Update 12/10
I wrote the above post over a week ago, but have been so busy I guess I never published it!  The pups are all doing well, and are getting bigger every day.  They still don't have names yet.

They have been moved to another room and are hanging out in a kiddie swimming pool so they can't crawl too far away and get lost! 

This is what they do... all day:

I think they look kind of like baby manatees.  Mixed with Shar Pei.    

 Yep, I'm sure that's what they are - Shar Pei/Manatee mixes. 

For those of you who forgot, here's what the mom looks like:

Lacey

She is a wonderful mother, and has created five wonderful pups.  I believe that these are the best puppies in the whole wide world.  They are definitely the best behaved dogs at my house.  Maybe the best behaved dogs in the entire state! That might change once they're able to start walking, but for now, they're just perfect!

One AntiSocial Sunday

Sundays are my antisocial days. I’m usually tired from the previous work week followed by the weekly adoption event on Saturdays, so I tend to spend my Sundays at home. I don’t check e-mails or answer phone calls, or do anything that requires me to talk to another person. A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, there was a knock at my front door. I checked out the window and saw a strange car with a small white dog inside. Since I live in the middle of nowhere and the only people who ever knock on my door are there to ask for something, I figured the people in the car were there to ask me to take their dog. Being the antisocial person that I am, and knowing that I already had a houseful of dogs with no room for another, I decided that instead of just opening the door and telling them I couldn’t help, I would take the coward’s way out and pretend I wasn’t home. I was relieved when after knocking once, they immediately walked back to the car, got in with the small white dog, and drove away.


It was probably twenty minutes later when I decided to go check the front door and see if they left a note. In a county with no animal control, the word gets around quickly when an animal rescuer moves into an area. I often get notes on my door with people’s phone numbers asking me to call them to see if I can help with unwanted pets. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was a note taped to the door. I figured I would read the note and call the people back the next day to let them know I couldn’t help and to suggest some other rescue groups and shelters they could contact. But as I began reading, I realized that wasn’t going to happen – because the note started off by apologizing for leaving a dog tied to my front porch.

I looked around wildly – no dog. I ran down the steps and looked around the corner. There I saw a medium sized tan and black dog with a shoelace tied to her collar. She growled and barked at me, and backed up as far as she could while still being tied to the porch. She was terrified, so I sat down on the steps and waited. While I waited, I finished reading the note (actually a two page letter, written before they ever came over). The writer said that she was recently homeless and couldn’t take her dog to the friend’s house where she was staying. I wondered if they let her take the small white dog, or if that was her friend’s dog. I also wondered how they could just leave this shy, scared girl with no one around to help her. I learned that the dog’s name was Bella and she was a nine-month-old Shepherd/Lab mix. I talked softly to Bella and within a few minutes was able to approach her and pet her. She then followed me into the house, and while she explored, I began making phone calls to find her a place to go.

Within an hour, Bella had a place reserved at a shelter in the next county, and I found a volunteer to drive her there when they opened again on Tuesday. But I knew from the moment I met her that Bella would not do well in a shelter environment. She was scared and would likely nip someone out of fear, or at least scare off any potential adopters with her fear barking. A noisy, chaotic place like an animal shelter was not something she would be able to deal with. Still, it took a few hours before my heart overruled my head and I convinced myself that I could foster her. I found another volunteer to keep her over the Thanksgiving holiday, and decided that along with her new life, Bella needed a new name. The rescue group I volunteer with already had one Bella available for adoption, so I posted Bella’s story on Facebook and quickly received several great suggestions for names. In the end, because of the shoelace she came with, Lacey became the perfect name for her.

Three days later Lacey went to the vet, and I shared my concerns with the vet that Lacey could be pregnant. I’m admittedly not any sort of an expert on pregnant dogs, and come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve seen any pregnant dogs before. But Lacey just looked not quite normal, almost like she’d had a litter of pups in the past, and if she really was only nine months old, that meant to me that there was a chance she hadn’t had pups yet but her body was preparing for pups. It was a relief to find out that the vet didn’t think she was pregnant, although she said she could have already had a litter of pups since dogs can get pregnant as young as six months old. So we made an appointment for her spay surgery and then I took her back home.

Lacey the not-pregnant dog

Lacey quickly fit in at my house, following me around everywhere and having perfect manners.  Her only issue was some slight food aggression, and she seemed to always be hungry.  She went to another foster home for five days while I went out of town, and when I picked her up, she looked like she had been eating very well.  Three days later, it was time for her spay surgery.  We walked into the vet’s office and Lacy stepped on the scale. The vet tech said “She’s 46 pounds… wait, that can’t be right. She was only 40 pounds when she was here two weeks ago.” I said, “Oh, I think 46 pounds is right. She’s become quite round over the past two weeks.” Can you guess?  Sure enough, this time x-rays showed four or five puppies growing quickly.

Our main priority was to do the right thing for Lacey.  Having puppies at nine months old is very hard on a dog, since they’re still growing themselves. But at this point the vet felt it would be harder on Lacey to spay her than it would to let her have the puppies. So now I can not only check off “Finding a dog tied to my front porch” from my “Things to Accomplish Before I Die” list, but I can also check off “Fostering a pregnant dog or cat”. Fortunately for Lacey, she won’t be stuck with me long, since she’ll get to go to a neonate specialty foster home in another week or two. And in about three weeks, the puppies should be born!