Introducing Gemma

Revelie, the deaf pit mix from Kansas City, arrived on Saturday.  I renamed her Gemma, because it's easier to spell. 


Gemma waits to go home



I find her kind of adorable.

Gemma is wonderful. She reminds me of Shelby.  She's very laid back and is perfectly content sleeping all day on the couch.  She was recently treated for heartworms so she may become more lively once she is feeling better, but as of right now I am enjoying the laid-back attitude.  She does great with all the other dogs, and she's such a friendly and loving girl.  I am pretty sure she'll be adopted quickly, in spite of being a deaf pit mix.  

My Week

It has been a crazy week, and I haven’t had time to take any pictures or write any blog posts. Here’s what I’ve been doing instead:


Adoptions
On Saturday, I started out with eight foster dogs. By the end of the day, I was down to four foster dogs. Hope the Black Lab mix puppy was adopted. Also Dolly the deaf Shih Tzu mix puppy was adopted. Connor the Chiweenie went to his new foster home. And best of all, Thor the German Shepherd Dog went to his foster-to-adopt home. He has the best new family. They rescue and foster senior German Shepherds, and are planning to adopt Thor once he is done with his surgery!

New Fosters
Twinkie and Trixie were two of the dogs were rescued from the hoarding situation. They’ve been at another foster home until last weekend. That’s when Trixie went into heat. Since we’re not able to get the dogs spayed or neutered until the court case is resolved, we had to get Trixie away from the other male dogs that were also rescued from the property. That meant that she had to come to my house. And since we didn’t want her to be alone, I took Twinkie too.  

Trixie



Twinkie

 Coordinating Transports
I generally rescue dogs from my immediate area, but since I really enjoy working with deaf dogs, I will sometimes take in dogs from out of the area. Right now there is a deaf six-month-old Chihuahua/Dachshund mix named Axle in Ohio that needs help, and a deaf pit bull mix named Revelie in Kansas City that needs help. I’ve been trying to coordinate getting Axle here, which has been a huge headache. However another rescue group – WonderWeims Rescue – is going to be driving to Ohio to pick up another dog next weekend and they’ve very kindly offered to bring back Axle for me too. So hopefully that will all work out and Axle will arrive safely next weekend. Revelie is scheduled to arrive tomorrow sometime, although exact details are still pending.

Writing a Guest Post
I am a big fan of the Deaf Dogs Rock website, and was recently asked to write a guest post about fostering for them. I wrote this post. I left out the warnings about how foster pets may decide to eat the house. I didn’t think that would help convince anyone to foster.

Hopefully the upcoming week will be a bit calmer and I will have a chance to take pictures and tell you all about the new fosters.  As always, thanks for reading!

Introducing Grace, Hope, Sophie, Dolly and Conner

I've taken in just a few (ahem) new foster dogs recently, and decided I'd better introduce them to you before they all get adopted. 
 

Grace



First meet Hope and Grace.  Five puppies were found running loose in a county with no animal control.  All Paws Rescue took them in, and eventually the two girls ended up at my house.  Grace has already been adopted, and the other three puppies she came in with have also found homes.  This just leaves Hope, who is still Hoping to find her very own home soon! 

Hope



These puppies are extremely well behaved, considering that they are puppies.  I don't think Hope has had even one accident in the house since the day I brought her home.  And she's very smart!  Whomever adopts her is going to be very pleased - unless they're looking for a challenge in which case they will no doubt be disappointed. 


 

Sophie



Next came Sophie.  Sophie is a seven year old St. Bernard.  She was at an animal control facility for several months without being adopted, so when I had room, she came home with me.  Sophie has perfect house manners.  She never has accidents, never chews anything up, and is calm and laid back.  This is one of the advantages to adopting an older dog!  She gets along well with the other dogs and the cats, and lately she and Lucky have become good buddies.  In spite of being seven years old, she still loves to run and play!

Dolly

Then there are my two newest foster dogs that I just picked up last night.  Several weeks ago another animal rescuer named Tracee had asked if I could help with some very shy dogs.  I told her I currently had several dogs and was still working with Bogey so I wouldn't be able to take on another shy dog for awhile.  Since I had not met Tracee before, I made sure to tell her how much I loved working with deaf dogs, so if she came across any needing help she would be able to give people my contact information.  I didn't know it at the time, but Tracee had a deaf foster dog right then.  When she told me about the dog, named Dolly, and asked if I would be interested in working with her, I jumped at the chance.  Although pit bulls are my favorite breed, I absolutely love the look of scruffy dogs, and Dolly was one of the cutest I've ever seen.  So yes, you can call me shallow, but I totally wanted to foster this dog because she was the cutest deaf dog ever.  Tracee warned me she was a spitfire, but said she had no real problems like fear or aggression.  I told her that after working with Ziggy, I felt confident working with just about any dog. 



Dolly does a play bow

I suppose you can guess what happened as a result.  I meet Tracee to get Dolly, and as Tracee's husband hands her over, Dolly goes wild and starts struggling and biting at me to get away.  Oh yes, she was a spitfire.  I quickly placed her back onto her foster dad's lap and told him "why don't you just go ahead and put her in the travel crate".  I wasn't feeling so confident right then! 

Fortunately once Dolly got home, she quickly settled down and has decided to let me pet her and pick her up without feeling the need to bite me again.  Her fur is so soft, and she's extremely loving and playful.  She does great with all the other dogs, except Lucky who she's not allowed to be around because he seems to think she might be a chew toy.  Right now she's playing with my other newest foster dog. 



Conner the Chiweenie



Conner is my unexpected, and very temporary foster.  When I talked to Tracee to arrange to get Dolly, she told me about a Chiweenie (Chihuahua/Dashchund mix) puppy who needed rescue.  The puppy was only eight weeks old, and had been given away on the side of a road.  The person who took the puppy was over the pet limit allowed by their area so had to give it away again.  So I told her if she could pick up the dog on her way to meet me, I would take that one too.  Chiweenie puppies are pretty easy to find homes for - small breed dogs are always popular, especially when they're puppies.  So as Tracee approached me with the puppy, I expected to see an eight-week-old Chiweenie.  Instead, Tracee and I both thought that Conner seemed to resemble another, less popular breed of dog.  Those are NOT so easy to place.  We laughed about it, and then I named him Conner (because calling him a Chiweenie seems to be a total con).  But no matter what breed or mix of breeds he is, Conner is absolutely adorable.  He's only staying a couple of days and then he'll be going on to another foster home.  He should be ready for adoption in another couple of weeks!

Lucky Gets His Picture Taken

In order to find a home for a foster dog, you need a good picture of the dog. Many times people will be looking on websites when they’re thinking about adopting, and when someone is faced with pictures of several hundred dogs looking for homes, they will usually skip over the pictures that are blurry, too far away, or otherwise unattractive. I’m not a good photographer by any means, so I usually have to take dozens of pictures just to get a usable one. In Lucky’s case, his online listing still has pictures taken at the shelter he was in before I got him, even though they were taken when he was much younger, just because I have yet to get any good pictures of him. It’s not due to a lack of trying. It’s not even due to camera shyness on his part. I believe it’s due to his idea of a great big joke.

Deaf dogs can be a challenge to take pictures of sometimes, because you can’t make noises to get them to look at the camera. But after taking a few dozen pictures of Lucky while waving at him to get his attention, I finally realized he was only looking intently at the ground whenever I held up the camera and waved.


"I'll just pretend to be sniffing this blade of grass."



"Here she comes with that camera again.  Time for more sniffing."

 Some dogs will sniff the ground as a distraction when they are nervous.  This is called "displacement behavior" and basically they ignore whatever is happening that is making them nervous and focus on sniffing the ground, or another behavior instead.  But I didn't think that's what Lucky was doing.  He showed no other signs of being nervous or unsure, and seemed to think it was a game to look down whenever I tried to get his attention. 

I decided perhaps an action shot would be a better choice. But somehow he managed to run around the yard, playing with Sophie the St. Bernard, without ever once showing his face to the camera.

"Let's run THIS direction!"


In fact, he’d turn practically in mid-air, just to run the opposite direction when he saw me with the camera.


"Here she comes!  Reverse!  Reverse!"

 Finally I realized what was going on.  Like many deaf dogs, Lucky had learned that looking away from a person was a great way to be able to do whatever he wanted without getting in trouble.  After all, he couldn't "hear" me if he didn't see me giving him a hand sign to stop playing, so as long as he didn't look at me, he could keep playing!

I generally don't have this problem with deaf dogs, because I teach them to look at me often - basically to "check in" with me so we don't have this problem.  Usually a dog that is acting this way is one who has been made to do things he didn't want too often, and didn't get enough rewards for doing good things.  So I teach them by giving them big rewards when they do look at me.  Treats, attention, petting, whatever they enjoy, and then I send them right back to what they were enjoying doing in the first place.  This way they learn to look for me on a regular basis when playing with another dog, or before digging in the garden, or whatever else they might be doing.  And mostly they get rewarded and get sent back to continue, but those times when play time is over, or the digging is starting, it's easy to get their attention and redirect them to something else.  Lucky probably didn't know this in his first home, and it may have contributed to why his original owner gave him up - because they got tired of constantly trying to get Lucky's attention and make him do things.  So I'm going to be teaching Lucky that being obedient and "checking in" pays off, but in the meantime, he may not want to look at me when he's doing something fun and fears he'll be forced to stop. 

WARNING: The following photos may be offensive to some. View at your own risk.


So at this point I just waited for him to get tired.  When he was standing in the middle of the yard, alone, with nowhere to hide, I tried again to take his picture. As I waited for the camera to auto-focus, then snapped the picture, this is what I ended up with:

"Excuse me, a little privacy here please?"

Hey, at least he’s finally looking at the camera. I waited a few minutes and decided to try again. Once again, I caught him looking at the camera, but once again it was not quite a pose I could send in to the pet adoption websites.


"That's right, this is MY ball!"

 At this point I gave up and decided that perhaps a video would be a better choice. At first Lucky did his best to run out of the camera range, but then Sophie told him to stop running and start behaving. He tried to convince her that running would be more fun, but eventually he realized she would not change her mind, so he gave up and walked away.

I may never get a good picture of Lucky, but I will keep trying!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Ziggy



"What's this?!  A shot-gun shell?"

 

"I'll take that!"



"Yeah, I'm tough.  I eat bullets for breakfast!"

 Disclaimer!  As soon as Ziggy put this in his mouth I took it away from him so he wouldn't choke.  I don't recommend letting dogs play with shell casings, but when I saw him approach the casing I had to snap a few quick pictures because it is so typical Ziggy.  And as for why there was an empty shell casing in my yard for Ziggy to find, I think Dave (my Army soldier husband) might be responsible.  We'll be having a talk about this when he comes back from his latest drill!

Piper's Story

As a puppy, Piper probably looked something like this:

Like many dogs, Piper at one point found herself without a home. She may have been given away free to a good home on CraigsList, or perhaps she was just let loose in the country to fend for herself. Whatever happened, she ended up at the home of an animal hoarder. Yesterday, when the animals were rescued, authorities found between 100-150 animals on the property, including dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, goats, and several other animals including several doves and a skunk living INSIDE the house! Many different shelters and rescue groups stepped up to save these animals and get them the care they needed. TASTC, a wonderful shelter in the area, worked hard to find temporary foster homes for these animals.

When All Paws Rescue, the group I volunteer with, stepped forward and offered to foster up to ten of the dogs, I was very proud to be part of such an amazing group of people. We were told the dogs were mostly under two years old and were small breeds which should be easily adoptable once they were released by the courts for adoption. We made arrangements for the dogs (I offered to take only one because I have several other foster dogs currently), and we waited for the call to come get them. As the hour approached, I prepared to leave work and head to the pre-appointed meeting place to pick up the dogs. Several other rescue groups were also meeting there to take in the dogs that they had offered to help. Then I got a phone call. It was my friend who was coordinating the rescue for All Paws and had offered to take four of them herself. She told me that among the many young small-breed dogs, they found a 16 year old pit bull. My heart fell – who would take this dog? All the groups helping out were anticipating dogs such as Maltese and Chihuahuas and Italian Greyhounds – the chances of someone taking an elderly pit bull were very slim. It’s not that the rescuers didn’t want to help her – but a commitment to foster a highly adoptable dog for thirty days is quite a bit different than a commitment to foster a 16-year-old pit bull who will have a really tough time finding a home. Still, this dog deserved to get into a foster home more than any of them. So I called the nice people at Wonder Weims who were coordinating all of the rescuers, and asked about the 16-year-old pit bull. That’s when I found out the dog was blind, and had a growth on her, and was very sweet. I asked what would happen to her, and at the time they had not found anyone to take her. That’s when I heard the words coming out of my mouth – “I’ll take her, at least temporarily.” I knew that my house was not the best situation for her – she’s mostly blind and very frail, and I have several energetic large dogs who would easily bowl her over. But at least she could stay with me until a longer-term foster home was found.

So a few hours later, the transport van pulled up in the parking lot, and they began to hand out dogs to the various groups for fostering. I helped load up the All Paws dogs, and quickly fell in love with a scruffy little Chihuahua pup. The dogs, although skinny and extremely smelly, were all adorable. Then as most of the other dogs were led away, they brought out Piper.

This frail, malnourished dog was missing an eye and looked overwhelmed by the noise and the people. As I walked her around the parking lot, she sniffed everyone she passed and even wagged her tail. She was not a small, fluffy little dog that everyone would want. She could barely walk, and stumbled several times. Her skin was awful, and she had several growths that would need checked out. But as I looked in her one good eye, and promised her that I would take care of her, she looked at me with trust and licked my face in thanks.



Piper

Last night Piper got to spend the night in a clean kennel, on a soft bed, with good food and water – all things she hasn’t known in too long. Although it’s obvious that she is confused by her new location and change in circumstances, she continues to be loving and affectionate. I may have given up the adorable Chihuahua pup in order to take Piper (although I’m still trying to figure out how to take them both!) but I know I made the right decision in taking Piper. And while I hope to find her a foster home where she can get more of the attention and care that she deserves, she will have a home here with me for as long as she needs.

There were many heroes in this situation - the people from TASTC and Act Now and WonderWeims who coordinated and made this rescue happen, as well as the many other rescue groups who worked together to save these animals. All of the foster homes and shelter workers have their own rescue stories (one friend has spent the entire day bathing, trimming nails, and deworming eight of these dogs!) This is just Piper’s story, one of over a hundred in this case alone.  And as with all the other rescued animals, Piper's story is really just beginning.

Birthday Post From Ziggy

Hi, I'm Ziggy!  In case you had not heard, today is my BIRTHDAY! I am now three years old.  You can tell I'm all grown up now because I was able to sit still for this picture without destuffing the Ziggy toy next to me.  My foster mom was very proud of me and gave me lots of good treats for this.  


Ziggy and Ziggy



Thanks Leanna!

Since my foster mom forgot my birthday the past two years, this was the first year I have had any help celebrating my birthday.  It has been amazing!  First, my friend Leanna and my foster mom gave me a surprise party on Saturday. They invited all my friends from All Paws Rescue, and when I walked into PetSmart, thinking it was just another regular adoption event, everyone in the store… I mean all my friends… I mean a few crazy All Paws people started singing Happy Birthday! Then Angie, one of my All Paws friends, gave me some chew bones to take home with me, and  my friend Leanna showed up and she brought me my very own iced tea (since I drank her dad’s iced tea when I went for a visit) and my very own Monster bone.

I immediately went into my crate and waited for Leanna to give me my bone. I was SO excited!


I wonder how fast I can eat this?

 I proceeded to enjoy my monster bone for the next 23 minutes and 54 seconds.


So good!

 It was the best 23 minutes and 54 seconds of my life!

In addition to the fun party with singing and presents, I had another great surprise this week. Several Facebook friends shared me on their wall and asked people to come visit me, so by the end of the week I had over 100 new friends! This not only means my foster mom owes me another chew bone (I get a new bone every time I get another 100 friends!) but it also means there are a lot of new people out there reading about me and helping me to find my forever home!

Also for my birthday, my friend Shuma made a video of me! It shows a lot of the fun things I’ve done in my life, like eating bananas, and wearing silly hats, and doing agility. I had my foster mom put it on my web page right away so everyone could see how much fun it would be to adopt me! Thank you Shuma for this great present, and for giving me treats every time you see me!

Thank you very much to all of you for supporting me, a deaf homeless pit bull, and helping to make this birthday the best one EVER.

Love,

Ziggy

Lucky Is Tall

I’m going to show you this picture, and ask you to ignore the obvious fact that I did NOT clean my windows before I took this picture.

I’d like to claim that the grass in the backyard only looks brown in the picture because of the dirt. Not because of the extreme heat and the fact that I’m too lazy to water it. I mean I’m conserving water, which is also why I haven’t washed my windows yet this week. Let’s go with that. Actually, if you don’t mind, let’s ignore all those things and talk about the dog looking in the window, assuming you can see him through the dirt. Notice how tall he is? That’s Lucky the Great Dane mix, and he always stands on his back feet like that to look in the window. It looks like he’s about to turn the doorknob with his paw and just walk right in. However, that pathetic look in his eyes is due to the fact that he hasn’t yet figured out how to actually turn the doorknob with his paw. He doesn’t like having to wait on me to get to the door when he wants to come inside. So he stands there on his back two feet, and looks at me with that pathetic look. And if I don’t get to the door quickly enough, he barks, while still standing on two feet. Oh yes, Lucky the deaf dog does love to bark. Then, when I open the door, he promptly races around the room as though it’s his own personal ice skating rink. He loves to go sliding across the laminate floor, and then crashing into whatever piece of furniture or human or other dog gets into his way. Then he’ll pick up his favorite sterilized bone and throw it and go skating across the floor after it again. He’s kind of strange, this Lucky dog.


Lucky and I have been attending agility classes for a few weeks now, and he’s become a bit of a class clown. His favorite obstacle is the tunnel. He’ll run through it at top speed, then go racing in circles around the room after he comes out the other side, as if he is so excited he can’t control himself. He makes everyone laugh. I am hoping this silly, happy goofball of a dog gets a home soon. Then I can go back to only having nose prints on the bottom half of my windows.

A-D-O-P-T-E-D!!

It’s the reason rescue organizations exist. To take homeless animals, care for them and love them, and then provide them with the one thing they need the most – a loving family of their very own. It’s the reason I foster. And today, it’s the reason I am celebrating, because several of my foster pets have been adopted recently. All four of them had one issue or another that made them difficult to find a home for. In some shelters, they never would have stood a chance. But today they’re all in loving homes, where I hope they will be able to spend the rest of their lives! Here are their stories:




Tank (left) and Mayzie



Mayzie – As an adult pit bull mix picked up as a stray, most places wouldn’t have given Mayzie a chance at life. Lucky for her she was found by someone who took her to a vet’s office instead of a shelter. And even more lucky, when the owners couldn’t be found, one of the employees reached out to everyone she knew to find Mayzie a place to go. The employee paid for Mayzie’s shots and spay, and then brought her to me. Mayzie is one of those dogs who loves everyone – human and animal. She makes friends wherever she goes, and she is always so happy. The daughter of one of the other foster volunteers fell in love with Mayzie, and adopted her last week. Now Mayzie (now named Mila) has a great family, and a step-brother named Tank who looks like he could be her real littermate. I was very confused when I first saw them together as to which one was Mayzie!



Shiloh in her new home



Shiloh – This Blue-tick Coonhound almost starved to death before she was rescued by my neighbors. Dogs like Shiloh – hunting dogs such as coonhounds and beagles – are often lost and end up in shelters all around the country. These dogs can go quite a long way from their home when they’re on a hunt or chasing a scent, and then not only can they not find their way back home, but their owners may not be searching for them in the right places because the dogs have gone so far from home. So shelters are full of dogs like Shiloh, and she may not have been lucky enough to make it out alive of most. Shiloh was one of the lucky ones and ended up in rescue. I was one of the people who fostered her during this time, and like her other foster mom, I just fell in love with her. She would often give very gentle hugs by standing up on her back legs and wrapping her front legs around my waist. She had long silky ears that were so much fun to play with. And her personality was extremely sweet, in spite of her lack of house manners! Shiloh had a lot of people interested in her, but she never found the right fit, until two weeks ago when a man came up to see her and decided to take her home as a foster with the plans to adopt her if everything went well. Last I heard, Shiloh is doing very well in her new foster home, and will hopefully be adopted in the next couple of weeks!

Charlie

Charlie – Also known as Charlie the Scaredy-Dog, Charlie has been waiting for a family of his own for his entire life. The first four years of his life were spent in a no-kill shelter, and while he was cared for by extremely devoted volunteers, he was just one of many homeless animals in the shelter. Then he came to me, and had to learn how to trust, and what it meant to live in a house, and go for car rides, and go out in public. And that was very traumatic for him. Even once he learned to trust me, he still was afraid of everyone else, and would huddle in the back of his crate at adoption events and bark at anyone who dared to pay him any attention. No one seemed inclined to adopt a scaredy-dog like Charlie, until Nathan and Catherine came along. This young couple met Charlie and immediately said “we want him”. Charlie is learning to trust them now, and I am hoping that within a few weeks, the adoption will be official and Charlie will get to live the rest of his life with a family who wants him.



Fawn

 Fawn – This four-year-old Italian Greyhound is another dog who spent the first four years of her life without a home. She was a puppy mill dog, kept only to produce puppies to sell, and never learned what it is like to be a part of a family. She came to us extremely frightened, and it took several months before she would come anywhere near me. Since she was a small purebred dog of a rather rare breed, Fawn got a lot of attention from potential adopters. But invariably by the time I told them that even though she had lived with me for months, she was still terrified of me and all other humans, they would realize she wasn’t what they were looking for. Until recently, when a lady contacted me and asked about Fawn, and wasn’t scared off by Fawn’s extreme shyness. She was knowledgable about Italian Greyhounds and couldn’t wait to meet her. Two days after going to her new home, I received an e-mail from the lady and expected to hear that “this isn’t working out”. Instead I heard “Fawn is fantastic!” And again I thought “this is why I foster”. The breeder who gives up Fawn and dogs like her will euthanize them if a rescue group doesn’t take them. Either these dogs aren’t producing babies anymore, or they get too old, or in Fawn’s case the breeder just decided to stop breeding Italian Greyhounds. If a rescue volunteer hadn’t stepped forward to take Fawn and the other breeder dogs, she would never have known life with someone who thinks she is fantastic.

That is why I foster. And that is why I love it.

Ziggy the adoptable dog!

P.S. Ziggy wants to remind you that his birthday is coming up in seven days. Since he will be turning three years old, he asked me to tell his friends to each send him three chewbones for his birthday, but instead I convinced him that I could ask his friends to donate three dollars to a shelter or rescue in their area next time they have the opportunity. He said he’d rather have the chewbones, but that would be a nice birthday gift too. So if you’d like to make a donation in honor of Ziggy’s birthday, please drop a few dollars into the donation jar of a rescue group or shelter near you next time you have the opportunity. Thank you – from Ziggy and all the other foster dogs and shelter dogs!