White Boxer

Ok, I have been wanting to blog about this all weekend but was really busy with dogs (as usual lol) so I wasn't on the computer. I will have to tell you about my weekend tomorrow... waiting to see how today goes so I can give you the full story.

Anyway, I was talking with my rescue friend and she was talking about her mom's dog Chance. Chance is a male ALL white boxer. He is a goofy dog, I joke he thinks he is a Jack Russell. I have no idea how we got on the subject but she was telling me how Chance ended up in rescue.

She received a phone call from a breeder who had a litter of boxer puppies and 3 of the puppies in the litter were all white and she needed them GONE before people came to look at them. Apparently white boxers in the boxer world are VERY undesirable and many breeders will kill off the white ones so no one knows their male / female carriers that gene.

This particular breeder didn't want t kill them so called my friend who agreed to take them.

So, the funny part to this is a friend of a friend has a male white boxer. The first time I met them they were bragging about how they drove to PA to buy him from a breeder and that they were going to use him as a stud dog and blah blah blah. I of course explained to them how there are so many dogs in this world and blah blah blah. I totally know I made them mad but whatever.

Anyway, it has been 4 years at least that they have had this dog. I am pretty sure they only attempted to breed him one time. The people that had the female were supposed to give the owners of the puppies but said the female only gave birth to one live puppy. That is an entirely different story but we are all pretty sure they lied.

But regardless HOW FUNNY! People are so stupid. If people who just educate themselves #1 they wouldn't be breeding a white male boxer. #2 the hilly billies that owned the female wouldn't want to breed to a white male and #3 we could do with a few less hilly billy breed dogs.

I just laugh! Too bad I didn't have this information when they were bragging about how they were going to breed their boxer. Oh that would have been great ammo. LOL!

Rescues good and bad

I wonder if the "bad" rescues were always bad or if they just got burned out from being beat up by the general public or if it is greed?

Personally, I work really hard to follow up with everyone who emails me, I try really hard to make sure that all my adopters know if they need anything I will do my best to help them and I think personally think that the number one way to be successful in rescue is to have good customer service for lack of a better word.

I want people to have a good experience when adopting so that they will hopefully adopt again when the time comes.

I want to help the dogs that need help, the dogs that are in shelters that don't have much chance of getting out.

I don't want to buy dogs from Auctions or millers or take only the "highly" adoptable dogs from the shelters.

Yet there are rescues who do all of those things. They have high adoption fees, don't seem to care about the dogs well being, they scream at their adopters when they call for help, they don't care once the dog leaves their care, heck there are a few rescues out there that don't even spay and neuter. WHAT???!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

So, basically you are a pet store selling dogs. Only difference is you PRETEND TO CARE!

I absolutely hate the fact I have to tell people go to PetFinder, go to Adopt A Pet but if you are interested in a dog let me know the rescue and I can make sure they aren't scammers.

UGH! That is horrible.

My one friend doesn't have a 501 registration but runs like a one. She gets upset because other rescue people make a huge big deal if you are a 501 or not. And I see her point.. WHO CARES. Even the ones with 501 don't run legitimately. Doesn't really mean anything if they don't care about the dogs. The only thing is a person can write them a donation and take it off their taxes. that is all that means.

UGH! I am so done with mean people.

13 puppies born Saturday

Yes, I am crazy :-)

Life has seemed to have gotten away from me. I am so overwhelmed at work, just seems like there is a lot of stuff going on. That combined with me worrying about one of my dogs. I am not sure if she is alive or dead.. still working on figuring that out. THEN I have Mr. Crazy but hopefully with security cameras I will be able to STOP him from harassing me. Oh and I had a friend get upset with me over a mistake.. needless to say we aren't friends any longer. Then I have the normal million emails of owner surrender dogs and the million emails about dogs in need. Honestly you can only take so many emails from people wanting to dump their dogs, emails about abuse cases, emails about dogs in shelters who are schedule to die before you just need to step back for a minute.

That is where I am right now I just need a minute or really just a few weeks. I want to focus on all the dogs I have in rescue right now. I have a lot of dogs who need some special care.. poor Simon and his abscessed anal gland, Bogart and his back, now Frosty, we have Jean and Graham who are older but AMAZING little dogs, Poor Daisy who is very much over weight and Reese who is just getting over his battle with heartworm and cancer.

AND NOW because I am crazy.. .LOL I have a female lab mix who is pregnant. Not sure when she will give birth within the week I am guessing.

I know I said I need a break but believe it or not me taking in the mom is a good thing. Puppies are a lot of work but will make me happy and I need something happy to focus on right now.

I will still take in a few dogs here and there but only as foster homes open up. I just really can't have a bunch of rescue dogs here, can't handle the stress of that right now.

Hoping that things start to work themselves out and I can feel a little more in control. Just so overwhelmed.

Oh and Frosty will be ok. He just needs to loose 10 pounds...

Frosty the American Eskimo

Shortly after I received a VERY rude email that really mad me angry and vented a little earlier, I received a phone call from a women named MaryAnn.

MaryAnn's husband was good friends with my Dad. His American Eskimo passed away of old age in Oct 2009. He came to me and asked me to find him another. They were older, lived in a mobile home and I knew darn well a rescue wasn't going to adopt to them. I am sorry to say it but some rescues and rescue people can be real snobs. The way I look at it is if people are wiling to love their dog and give it a wonderful life with all the things it needs (grooming, vet care, food, exercise, etc.) then I don't care if you are a millionaire or not.

Anyway, I told MaryAnn's husband that I would find him and Eskie and I did. It was a lot of work but I was able to get him pulled and transported from Darke County Ohio to me and then to the man. The man was so happy to have him, he cried. He promised to get all the dogs medical taken care of, I did the vaccinations but h e needed heartworm test, rabies and to be neutered. I was able to get him the dog, I want to say right at the beginning of Dec.

Right before Christmas I received a phone call from his wife. The man passed away and she was stressing out about the dog. Being an Eskie he of course is the sweetest dog EVER but he clearly had lead a horrible life and was older. MaryAnn didn't know how she was going to pay for his vet care, how she was going to take care of him and what she was going to do.

MaryAnn depended on her husband to take care of everything and she was totally lost without him. MaryAnn didn't drive either.

I told her that I would pay for him to be neutered, have a dental, etc. She made the arrangements took Frosty in and picked Frosty up. I told her if she ever needed anything to let me know. From time to time I called her and checked in, if she needed anything I made sure to get it to her... dog food, grooming for the dog, etc.

Well tonight after the email that made me really upset, she called and said Frosty was sick. She took him to the vet yesterday and was given some medicine but she wasn't able to get him to take it today. She said he went outside this morning and wouldn't come back in. He has been outside on the porch (a slab of concrete) all day.

I finished up what I was doing at work and rushed over to her house. Frosty was laying on the concrete with a blanket over him, drool and or pee all over, coughing and just looking miserable. I picked him up, put him in the car and asked her for the paper work from the vet and the medicine and RUSHED him to my vet. It was 6:30ish and my vet closes at 7pm. Well really their last appointment is 6:40.

Long story short the vet that saw the dog didn't really do anything to help him, the poor dog is suffering and he is now at my vet overnight. My vet told me what was going on or what they could figure out and gave me some options. I said "before I have a total melt down can you please keep him overnight and just make him feel better"

I LOVE MY VET OFFICE!! Seriously, some days I don't know if I could do this dog rescue stuff without them. The tell me how it is, they don't screw me and will do whatever they can for the dogs I bring in.

I came really close to crying today... the stress of everything is really getting to me.

And the funny thing about this story.... MaryAnn doesn't have a contract with me, yet she calls me and tells me when she needs help and doesn't mind me calling to see how everything is going. YET people who do sign contracts try to screw me. isn't that interesting!!

3 day adoption event!

This weekend was a pretty good weekend. It is the first time I have done a 3 day adoption weekend. Probably won't do that again but it was worth a try.

Friday night Betsy got adopted by a really nice family. They actually came to meet stone but Betsy put on her charm and won over the husband. I think she already has him wrapped around her little paw. LOL! Her new name is Izzy.

Met this super nice family on Friday night who came back and adopted Stone on Saturday. I was really excited. Rufus and Magic found really great homes too.

Today Sage found a home with a family who came up all 3 days to check out the dogs and on Saturday fell in love with Sage. I was so happy when I saw them walk back in today :-)

For the most part people were pretty nice and things went well.

There was one family that really upset a lot of the volunteers. They had 4 dogs and were saying how they wanted to get rid of the one dog b/c she was too hyper and they hater her. Long story short, they were threatening to "kick her out" and one of the volunteers ended up getting the dog from the people (I didn't know until after the fact). The women wouldn't give the volunteer her name, vet records for the dog or tell what rescue she got the dog from. All I know is it was a rescue in Toledo.

The mom of the family said they hadn't had any of their animals to the vet in over 4 years. Who the hell approved them to adopt a 3 year old Boarder Collie? The people were idiots and I guess i know have a Boarder Collie to adopt out.

What is funny about this story.. not funny haha but funny strange. I have people tell me that if they adopt a dog they don't want anyone "looking over their shoulder" and checking on the dog.

WELL EXAMPLE NUMBER 1 AS TO WHY I DO!!!

Just amazes me people adopt a dog and then treat it like crap. Every legitimate rescue has in their contract that they will take a dog back. Why don't people just call up the rescue and have them take it back. No instead they act like A-holes. I am going to try to figure out who they got the dog from and try to find their full contact information so I can DNA (do not adopt to) them. Idiots.

The volunteer that took the dog, says it is a nice dog. Housebroken, good in the crate and loves to play with other dogs. Well at least this time the poor dogs won't be failed. AND I PROMISE HER THAT!

This week's email

This week alone I received 15 requests from owners wanting to give up their dog(s), 1 from someone who found a JRT, 1 from a person knowing about a JRT living outside, 1 from a person who rescued to 2 JRT's from a puppy mill breeder who was going to "shoot" them and 7 emails from shelters / volunteers asking me to find room for a JRT who is scheduled to be euthanized.

ALL of these emails are from OHIO. The above mentioned doesn't count all the emails I received from outside of Ohio.

Can someone please explain to me how the heck is one person, one small rescue supposed to even come close to helping all these dogs??

Reality is, NOT POSSIBLE and unfortunately for the 30 something dogs that need help will not get it :-(