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.

You Never Know the "Moment"

Yesterday I had a moment that stopped me in my tracks.

I noticed that an acquaintance had posted a new Facebook picture with a puppy – the same person that had not even a month before asked me for resources to find a dog to adopt.

I commented on the photo, inquiring where he had adopted the dog from, and he replied that he got it from a guy in La Junta or Lamar … I don’t remember even a day later where he said he got him … but it doesn’t matter, it was clear to me that he had purchased this dog from a breeder.

The fact that someone I knew – someone who saw my Facebook posts about dogs in shelters and the need for foster homes to save these dogs, someone who was well-educated, someone who I respected in many other ways, a compassionate someone even – would buy from a breeder, crushed me.

I know that often my first reaction is not my best, so I waited.

I waited an hour. I waited two hours. I wrote a couple friends and asked them to help me be more rational about it.

First replied my friends in dog rescue – the ones who have first-hand seen the despair that a shelter brings to the eyes of dogs of all kinds: purebred dogs, puppies, old dogs with once happy memories … all dogs. These are the people who know what it is really like and who put the needless deaths of millions of adoptable pets into a realization that they can only do so much; moreover, a group that to cope has to have a morbid acknowledgement of the death, to allow them to live their daily lives despite what they know.

These friends replied to me with empathy that despite their efforts, their friends, their families and their colleagues had all purchased dogs from breeders at some point, too, making them also feel like they made no difference at all.

While their replies resonated with me, perhaps the most insightful response was from a friend that recently had come to an understanding of my animal rescue efforts. This friend told me that “ultimately it’s human nature to sometimes be selfish … when you think you want something, or think it’s easier when it’s to, you go do it or buy it or whatever. Discipline, self-control and knowing is half the battle.”

 
He reminded me that I didn’t always “get it” – that I wasn’t always the way I am.

To be honest, he’s right.

Before I first stepped foot in a shelter, I was afraid of it. I thought I would just cry and thus I inevitably was a person that would rather be blissfully ignorant than gain an understanding.

That “me” that had never seen the horror of people dropping their dog off at the shelter because it was too old, too young, they were moving across town, or they just didn’t want it.

That “me” that hadn’t seen a man threaten to let his dog loose in the street if the shelter wouldn’t take it.

And that “me” hadn’t seen a dog there one day and gone the next because space and time ran out.

While I’ve seen things I wish didn’t exist, and I’ve shed tears, I’ve also found a deeper joy than I knew existed through the other things I’ve seen. For while there is evil, there is so much beauty to be seen.  

I have witnessed the precious scene of a dog cozying into a fluffy blanket on the couch when they used to sleep in a cold, damp cage.

I have seen people who never knew what a foster home was (myself included) welcome a dog into their home and save a life.

I have met many people who always bought dogs from breeders in the past, decide it was time to rescue a dog instead and still find the perfect dog.  

Perhaps like everything else there are some people who will always prefer to ignore the facts and voices of reason.

Yet, in my blissful awareness, I chose to continue to try to make a difference.

Even if someone doesn’t listen now, they may someday, for as my friend reminded me “knowing is half the battle” … and we never know when that moment will be that someone choses to not only listen but also to hear what is being said.