Looking for a bit of magic for Tinker Bell

The following article is a guest post on the Doggie Avenger Blog, written by a fellow Doggie Avenger, Erin Rist.
 
 
If you have ever had the pleasure of owning a Great Dane then you know how they bury themselves deep into your heart. They are beautiful, majestic dogs who are incredibly sensitive, embody the spirit of "man's best friend" and have an extraordinary way of communicating with you that no other breed can match.
 
Great Danes are well known as "Gentle Giants" and depending on their build and gender they can weigh anywhere from 90-200lbs. They often don't realize their own size. They bump into things and think they can fit on your lap. One my Danes loves to sit on my lap!
 
They are surprisingly sweet with other dogs and are careful not to be reckless around small dogs and children. Great Danes are the true definition of couch potatoes and spend most of their time being lazy. And they are the best cuddle buddies, mostly because their size makes them 100% huggable.
 
As someone who is owned by two Great Danes herself I have a soft spot for them and can't bear to see a Dane suffering.
 
Currently at the MaxFund sits lovable 6-year-old Tinker Bell the Great Dane. Tinker Bell was surrendered by her owner who slapped her across the face in front of MaxFund staff just before she released Tinker Bell into the next chapter of her life. It doesn't take an expert to see that this was not the first time Tinker Bell was abused. I have met Tinker Bell myself and you can see the abuse on her through her eyes and it has even burned into her heart. She seems sad and looks defeated. It is truly heart breaking to look at her.
 

But, through all of that, within minutes of meeting Tinker Bell she came over to me and gave me a soft kiss on my cheek. She is truly the example of looking forward despite the cards she has been dealt so far.
 
Tinker Bell has been at the MaxFund for almost two entire months. While the staff there cares and provides for her to the best of their abilities it is still especially hard on a Great Dane to live their life in a cold, kennel without the comforts of a home and without knowing what their future holds. Great Danes are dogs meant to be right next to their people whether that is underfoot, on the couch or snuggled up in bed. The lonely, cold and isolated experience of any shelter is never good for any dog but for a Dane it can be devastating.
 
I implore anyone who has just read these words to get up and do something! Let's get her out of the MaxFund and into her forever home; let's help Tinker Bell get to her perfect tomorrow.
 
How can you do this?

·         Consider adopting Tinker Bell from the MaxFund.

·         Spread the word. Re-post this information to your own personal blog, your Facebook wall, post a link to it from your Twitter handle, email your friends, family and anyone you know who may be able to provide any opportunities to Tinker Bell.

·         Send your good vibes, warm thoughts and prayers Tinker Bell's way.

 
Tinker Bell deserves all of the help we can lend her. If you have the heart take the time to do anything you can to help her out. Everything counts, big and small.


If you'd like to find out more about Tinker Bell, please visit www.MaxFund.org.

 

Patches O'Houlihan's Luck o' the Irish

In my opinion, this story already has a happy ending.

Patches O'Houlihan - Patches for short- is sleeping on a fleece blanket next to me with his legs resting on the pug laying next to him.

This kind of calm and peace always makes me happy, but perhaps it seems even more happy when you contrast it to the place he was last night - or eight hours ago, for that matter.

Patches was a last chance dog just hours ago.

He and I left the Denver Municipal Animal Shelter (DMAS) for his second chance at life on a day when all of my friends were out celebrating St. Patty's Day downtown -  hence his Irish-ish name.

This adorable, young terrier pug mix had been at the city shelter for one month, a pretty long time for a shelter with an average stay of closer to a week.

Patches has a skin irritation, causing his belly to be pink and not have much hair on it, a rash that is likely from something minor like a food allergy. Yet, because of his skin, he was not allowed to be adopted to the public through the shelter - he was placed on the "rescue-only" list, meaning that only other animal rescue organizations can take him out of the DMAS.

The rescue-only list is typically for dogs that are fearful, timid, aggressive, or on medication. While it can be hard to tell if they are just scared of the shelter environment, any dog exhibiting these behaviors or who is suffering from an illness or on a medication will not be available to the public at many city shelters, at any time.

While this sounds strange to many people I've told about it, let me derail slightly and applaud how far the shelter system has come in collaborating with rescues, in an effort to save more dogs. Efforts like that make all the difference in the world, and have helped DMAS decrease the save rate of their dogs from about half several years ago to almost 85% currently.

Shelters are starting to take very proactive approaches to saving lives, and it's starting to work.

For Patches, he was on his last call - labeled "urgent" - because he had been at the shelter so long. We took him out of his cage and I sat on the floor outside his kennel. After circling me a couple times, he climbed into my lap and gave me a kiss. I was sold ... and I brought him home as our next foster dog.

Now, just eight hours into this foster experience, I'd like to think that Patches isn't even thinking about his month in the shelter, or the sad situation that got him there - one that I don't even know - but rather, I hope that Patches is already understanding the amount of love he will receive in his life with this second chance.

Patches is a sweet dog that I've quickly learned that loves to play fetch, give kisses and can jump on a bar stool despite his small stature. When I think about this little life being cut short in a few short days, it makes me a little sad, of course, but it should also empower and renew us all in the importance of stepping up every day and trying to make a difference to someone or something somewhere.

For as the rescue community notes, and I think Patches would agree: Saving the life of one animal may not change the world, but the world will surely change for that one animal.

And furthermore, I think it's an oversight to not say that we ourselves will also be changed. As Patches sleeps next to me, I feel a wave of hope come over me with his steady breathing and cute little ears flopping over his face.

He doesn't have a permanent home yet, but he will.
Animals still die every day in shelters, but with our help it will stop.
People still buy from breeders and pet stores (puppy mill storefronts), but education can change that.

Sitting next to him I feel so hopeful for the future of animal rescue.

Things are changing; forward movements are happening. People are stepping up and fewer animals are dying. One dog at a time we'll change the trends, we'll change the death count, and we'll change the world.

But for today, it was Patches world that changed.



Annabelle's Beautiful New Beginning

A small white and black rat terrier looked up at us from an email – in her photo she looked homely against the pale white walls of her cage at Farmington Animal Shelter. She sat on a dingy white blanket.

The email was a “last chance” call for the dogs listed. That dog in the photo needed us to foster – we were her last chance, so we told the transport to tag her for rescue.

She arrived on a large horse trailer on a Friday night, and was skinny and smelly, but so sweet and gentle.

As soon as we got her home, we fed her and she gulped down her food – she literally didn’t chew a single morsel, just swallowed it whole. After that, the first order of business was a bath, which she did well in – making cute noises with the warm water on her back.

About halfway through the first evening with this little pup, I noticed that despite her bath, she still smelled a little strange. I checked her ears, nothing. I checked her coat, nothing. Then I checked her teeth and almost dropped her from my reaction to what I saw.

Her teeth were covered in the worst gingivitis I’d ever seen. I googled pictures of gingivitis and still couldn’t find anything worst. The poor thing wouldn’t let me near her mouth … it then hit me that she wasn’t swallowing her food just because she was starving, she swallowed it so she wouldn’t have to chew.

Long story short, we found a vet that would do the dental for a discounted rate, and Colorado Canine Rescue didn’t miss a beat in saying they would cover her dental surgery.

After the surgery, we picked up the little sweetheart that we had named Annabelle, and were told that our little 8-pound cute foster pup had only five teeth left. Every other tooth had to be extracted due to the damage.

 

Over the next couple days she recovered quickly.

About a week after the surgery we were sitting on the couch with the pups and Annabelle picked up a soft toy. It took us a moment to realize what she had done, and then another moment to grasp it. She picked up a toy. With her mouth, she picked up a toy.

A minute later we played our first game of fetch. It was on.

 

Annabelle quickly became the dog she was meant to be.

 

She finally didn’t feel awful – she probably hadn’t known what it was like to feel good. She became spunky, playful, and silly. She’d throw her own toy if you didn’t do it for her, and would curl up under the covers every night and snuggle into you sweetly. She gave kisses.

About a month passed and Annabelle had long stolen our hearts, but as foster parents we knew by getting her adopted into a great home, we’d be able to save more animals. A good friend of mine who is in flyball competitions invited me to a tournament and suggested I bring Annabelle.

Fast forward a couple days and we brought Annabelle to flyball. We pulled up to the tournament and noticed a woman walking her rat terrier outside the complex, and walked in while humorously noting that they were twins.

Inside there were hundreds of dogs. We found our friend and she introduced us to a woman standing next to her, noting that Annabelle was up for adoption. The woman immediately led us to someone she said we had to meet.

We found ourselves in front of the woman we had seen outside with the other rat terrier. She had lost her German Shepard to old age and said she had been waiting for the right dog to adopt to fall in her lap, because it had always happened that way. And there we were.

The adoption was complete that afternoon and we left Annabelle with her new family: a brother rat terrier, sister Siberian Husky and her new mom.

Looking back at each dog we foster is such a gift. We had Annabelle (now Leilah) for about a month and that little dog taught us so much about perseverance.

Our little Annabelle has a lesson for all of us that rough starts – even rough “middles” – can still give way to beautiful second beginnings. And what a beautiful beginning it is.

The Missing Piece of Saving Lives

You may know when you walk into an animal shelter that the dogs you're looking at don't always have much time left, but you may not know just how it works.

Let me start by noting that between 3 and 4 million dogs and cats die in shelters every year in the United States, which makes up 60% of dogs and 70% of cats in shelters.

People working in animal rescue have incredible hearts and do everything they can to save as many animals as they can, but they can't do it alone.

Every time a person buys an animal from a breeder, we take a step back.

Every time a family decides that moving, their new baby, their hours at work or the fact that they've become bored at being a pet owner are good reasons to drop their one-time best friend off at the pound, we take a step back.

Every time someone decides not to spay or neuter their animal, we take a step back.

Every time someone decides they can't find the pet they want in a shelter (25% of shelter animals are purebred, according to the ASPCA), we take a step back.

Behind the scenes of our nation’s shelter system are the aforementioned countless volunteers and rescues working to undo the harm done by all of those steps back in our society. These people take on the monetary strain and energy drain of trying to save as many animals as possible.

They rehabilitate abused and broken dogs and they nurse puppies back to health.

They foster dogs that run out of time in overcrowded shelters, or that are too old or sick to be in a cage and experience the stress of a shelter.  

They work tirelessly to transport dogs from shelters where they would be killed for space to shelters or rescues that can spare them more time.

And they lose sleep at night trying to figure out what they can do to save more dogs...

 
So what's the missing piece?
I'd argue that it is "you."

You don't have to rehabilitate dogs or nurse puppies back to health. You don't have to foster or transport dogs. All you need to do is care.

I'd also argue that if you care, you could do three small things that would make a huge difference.

1. Adopt.

I really see no excuse for anything but rescuing an animal, if you feel you have a really valid reason that you really needed to buy your dog from a breeder or a pet store (aka. puppy mill storefront) please feel free to send it my way. However, please check out www.petfinder.com before you decide there is some designer-dog that you cannot find for adoption – and that you can justify the death of other animals – for you to have.

2. Spay and neuter.

This is the most simple of all. It is not cute when your animal has a litter; it is a death sentence to a half-dozen puppies already in the shelter system. Please spay and neuter your pets.

3. Treat your pet as your family member.

Pets are for life. You don't drop your kids off at the local homeless shelter when they get sick, old, annoying, or when things in your life change, so don't do it to your animals. While you might have a fairy tale in your head that they will be better off without you, please know that the reality is that they get depressed, they miss you, and they could very well be one of the 6/10 who don't make it out alive. Puppies, purebreds, and good/sweet/adorable/cute dogs die in shelters every day, so don’t believe that yours would be any different.

Nothing will be different unless we all step up a little and chose to make a difference.
And it is as simple as that – you do have the power to save lives.