More Returns!

One of the challenges of rescue is taking back previously adopted dogs when their owners can no longer care for them.  Since I volunteer with an all-foster home group, we have no shelter building to house the dogs.  If a dog is going to be returned, we hope that the person who originally fostered the dog will take him or her back.  But if that isn't possible, then everyone in the group works together to find a place for the dog to go.  I am fortunate enough to work with a wonderful group of volunteers, and someone is always stepping up to help whenever is needed.

Returns don't happen very often, but sometimes it seems as if when one happens, it is immediately followed by many more!  In the past two weeks, we've received several returned dogs, and it seems that most of them have been mine!  The good news is that Nosey, the blind Beagle puppy who was going to be returned, ended up going to a family member of the adopter and is no longer being returned.  Also one of our new foster volunteers stepped up to help out by fostering Bogey when he was returned.  He's doing wonderful in his new foster home!  It also helped that Allie and Natasha's adoptions are both working out, and in addition Trooper the Black Lab and Libby the deaf Jack Russell Terrier were also adopted!

Jax is one of the returns that I took in last week.  He is a great little guy - only 8 months old - and already I'm forcing him to earn his keep by collecting donations at adoption events.  So far he's earned around $40 over the past two adoption events - not bad for a dog!

Jax

The other returns that ended up coming back to my house are Louie the Black Lab mix and Gemma the deaf pit bull mix. Both were returned because their owners could no longer afford to care for them.

Louie is a year and a half old, and was part of the "Donald Duck" litter.  

Louie!

He is now all grown up.  He's very nervous around new people at first, but he's quickly learned to trust me and has become my constant companion, even sleeping on my bed at night.  

Louie looking nervous during an adoption event.

Gemma is the other recent return.  She originally came from a shelter in Kansas City, where she was going to be put down without ever being made available for adoption due to being deaf and heartworm positive and having some health issues.  Fortunately the shelter has a great rescue coordinator who shared her and when I saw her on Facebook I immediately said I'd take her.  She had been hit by a car prior to being taken to the shelter and has some nerve damage in her front leg which causes her to limp.  However she completed her heartworm treatment and is in good health other than the continuing issues with her leg.  Gemma is a very sweet dog - she is affectionate and loves everyone she meets.  The other family who fostered her previously wants to take her back as soon as their current foster dog is adopted, but in the meantime she is staying here with me.  I am enjoying having her back!

Gemma

The other exciting thing that happened this week was Zara, Ziggy's littermate who was adopted out three years ago, was lost and came back for a few days until we could locate her owner.  She is now safely back home!

Zara

For those of you wondering, Ziggy and Zara used to love to play together.  I wanted to give them a chance to play together again while Zara was back, but it turns out that they're much more mature now, and Ziggy was too busy worrying about if Zara would steal his stuff to actually want to play.  So Zara played with all the other fosters for a few days and seemed to have a great time visiting everyone except Ziggy!

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. 

Introducing Libby & Trooper

It's been a month since I took home Libby, so I thought I'd better finally get around to introducing her.  She is a partially deaf Jack Russell Terrier who was found in a ditch on the side of the road.  Her owners were never found, so she came to All Paws Rescue.  This is Libby:

Libby is around eight years old, and she's extremely quiet and laid back.  She's not at all a typical Jack Russell - she sleeps most of the time, never barks or gets excited, and seems to live in her own world.  She was at my house for several weeks but when an opening came up at another foster home, she immediately asked for a transfer.  She said she'd prefer a home with fewer dogs, and I said so would I.  But in the end, she got to go to the other foster home, and I had to stay at my house with all the dogs.  I knew that she was happier in her new foster home when she saw me at an adoption event and pretended that I was a total stranger.  It'd been less than two weeks since she'd left my house, but there was not even a glimmer of recognition in her eyes when we met again. 

Natasha, the Sheepdog or Labradoodle or some other mixed breed, was also at another foster home but decided that she missed me.  She decided the fastest way to get sent back to my house would be to attack another dog at her foster home, and sure enough, she did it and back to me she came.  She seems happy to be back, and she's a very easy dog to foster, so I don't mind at all having her back.  She's actually very good with other dogs unless she has to share her humans.  But we're working on that and she's learning the only way she gets attention is if she is willing to share.  She's hoping for a home without other dogs so she can have all the attention for herself. 

A few weeks ago I was driving to work when I saw a black Lab standing on the side of the highway.  I live in a rather rural area and many people let their dogs run loose, so it's not uncommon to see dogs in the area.  However something about this guy made me stop.  I think it was that he was all alone, surrounded by fields with no houses in sight.  So I turned around and went back to where he was standing, and walked near him and called to see if he'd come to me.  Most dogs in this area would not go to a stranger, and this guy was no different, but he also didn't run away.  So I decided to see if he'd come up to another dog.  I had Jill the Beagle with me because I was dropping her at the vet on my way to the office, so I took her out of the car and walked her on a leash along the highway near the Lab.  As we approached, he took a few steps toward us and sniffed Jill.  This gave me the opportunity to put a slip lead around his neck and lead him back to the car.  It took awhile for me to figure it out, but finally I realized something wasn't right with him.  He wasn't bleeding, and he could walk, but he just didn't seem to feel well.  So off to the vet we went, and they took some xrays and called to let me know that the dog, who I named Trooper, has a broken spine.  It turned out to be broken in two places, an injury that is common with dogs who have been hit by a vehicle.  So this explains why he was standing in the ditch on the side of the highway. 


Trooper

Trooper is about a year old, and he had no collar or microchip when he was found.  All Paws Rescue kindly agreed to take care of whatever he needed, and he ended up going to a specialty 24 hour veterinary hospital for several days for monitoring and pain medication.  There was some talk of doing surgery to help him heal, but the vet felt that he would be better off letting the fractures heal on their own.  So he recently was able to leave the emergency veterinarian and go to our regular vet's office for another ten days so they could monitor him during the initial recovery time and make sure his pain medication is sufficient.  After that if he's still doing well he will either come back to my house or possibly another foster home, and will have to be on crate rest for at least six weeks before he gets additional xrays to see how he is healing.  Trying to keep a one-year-old Lab puppy quiet for six days, much less six weeks, seems like an impossible task.  He has to stay in the crate 24/7 except for going outside on a leash to potty.  So the poor guy is having a rough time, but he should make a full recovery. 

Introductions and Adoptions

Lately I feel as if I'm always running behind.  Somehow as I look at my most recent blog posts, I find that I've neglected to tell you about several new fosters, and a few of them have already been adopted!  So to catch up, here's the short version..



Peaches

  Peaches is an extremely sweet Lab mix who belonged to my neighbors.  Since they let their dogs run loose, Peaches and the other dogs often came over to my house across the street to visit me.  I fell in love with Peaches the first time I met her, and often reminded my neighbor that if she ever decided to give Peaches up, I would take her.  That day finally came, and last week Peaches came to my house as a foster dog.  She's a great dog - loves to cuddle, loves to play with the other dogs, loves to eat - she just loves life.  So when she was adopted this past weekend, I was very happy for her, but just a little bit sad that I didn't get more time with her!




Natasha



Natasha came from an animal shelter in Columbia, MO. She is around four years old, and has this cute scruffy look that I love.  She was one of those dogs that I brought in and instantly she fit in with no adjustment time at all.  She stayed loose in the house while I was at work and never tore anything up.  She slept on my bed at night and never bothered the cat.  She played great with all the other dogs, and she bonded very quickly to me.  Natasha hasn't been adopted yet, but we had a new volunteer sign up to foster for us, so I gave her my perfect dog so she would hopefully have a good foster experience.  Because if I'd given her Ziggy to foster, she'd have drove him back to my house and we'd never see her again.  So far she says she hopes Natasha gets adopted soon because she is falling in love with her!

Nosey is my newest Beagle puppy.  When I heard that SNUGGLE, the neonate rescue group who had helped us with Jill and her puppies, had a blind puppy that they wanted us to take, I basically begged them to pick me please.  Amazingly enough, the competition was slim and I was allowed to foster this adorable guy.  Nosey was born with retinal dysplasia and has been blind from birth.  There's nothing that can be done to repair his vision, but so far he has no idea that all the other dogs have a sense he is missing.  In his world, we're all blind.  And he gets around just as well as all the other dogs.  He's a happy little pup, always sniffing and usually finding stray pieces of kibble that the other dogs miss.  He loves to play with the other dogs, but he is a bit rough on small dogs, so will do best with bigger dogs.  He's received several applications for adoption but so far none of them have passed the vet check that we do, so he is still with me! 


Frodo



 And then there's Frodo.  Frodo is a long-haired cat, although in this picture he has been shaved down.  He is a very tiny cat with a very large personality.  He had ringworm when he was a young kitten, and is still recovering, so I will have him at least a few more weeks until he is deemed ready for adoption.  He's extremely affectionate and playful, and will make a wonderful pet for someone eventually! 



Jude



 Jude is another foster dog who has been fostered and is already adopted.  He is your typical Lab puppy - easy-going, friendly, loves everyone.  He is around 8 months old, and was turned into rescue with his sister.  He has been adopted by a family with three kids, and it seemed to be his dream come true!   

 Other recent changes include Trixie the Chihuahua who was adopted, Twinkie the Chihuahua who went to another foster home and may be adopted by the foster, Ivy the Beagle puppy who was adopted, Iris the Beagle puppy who went to a foster-to-adopt home, Gemma the deaf pit bull mix who went to another foster home, and Piper the 16-year-old pit bull from the hoarding situation who went to her forever home!

I still have Bogey the shy dog, Lucky the deaf Catahoula/Great Dane mix, Allie the Border Collie/Akita mix, Jill the Beagle mom, and Ziggy the TV star.