A change from mange

Though we've established a pattern of fostering mange dogs, I decided to have a change of pace and foster a pregnant one instead.

This cute little momma dog was going to be killed by the local pound because of her condition. They don't have the resources or the sanitary conditions to deal with newborn pups. And at this very late stage, pregnant spay is not a good idea.

So my foster group, which only takes dogs from the pound's euth list--a policy that has earned the group my eternal respect and admiration--pulled the dog, "Nancy," (I didn't name her, alas) and put out a plea to their fosters. She got bounced around a bit before I managed to persuade Byrd to let me foster her.

And here we are. I've never done the whole puppy delivery thing before. I have no idea what to expect or what to do. But I figure, if bajillions of backyard breeders can do it every year, then it can't be that hard.

Public service announcement: If you really want to experience the "joy of birth" or "joy of puppies" (or whatever), please, become a foster home for homeless dogs like Nancy.

Your local foster group will have--waiting for foster and salvation--

• pregnant dogs
• dogs that have just birthed a litter
• orphaned litters or lone puppies that need hand raising
• slightly older puppies just needing a place to crash until someone adopts them

You can have your fill of puppies and birth and whatnot, AND save their lives at the same time. It's a win-win situation.

The excuse for getting rid of Nancy was quite simple. Her paperwork said: "Can not keep."

I can and have volunteered at several shelters, but I could never deal with intake. I would kill someone.

Fun Game Time!!

What type of dog do you think Nancy is? Any guesses? Or, rather, pretend that you are a member of an adoption agency, and you would like to make sure that when people are searching for Nancy's likely breed, Nancy will show up in the search results.

Here are a bunch of pictures to help you decide what to call Nancy. Nancy weighs 31 pounds pregnant, so she is probably about 25 pounds usually. She's somewhat bigger than a cat.

In a future post, I'll reveal what breeds the pound thought Nancy is.

And I'm going to need some downright adorable, irresistable puppy names. So start thinking about that, too! :)

Spayed but not as stated

The shelter did not spay Star last Monday, though they claim they did.

There is a scar that appears to be from spaying. But it's a very old scar.

I took Star to the vet because, frankly, I didn't see any sutures and I thought I was going crazy. I wanted the vet to give me some answers. And the vet agrees, so I'm not crazy (about this, anyway)--my dog sure didn't get spayed a week ago.

I'm a little annoyed because the shelter literally went through the entire song-and-dance about spaying. They held my dog for three days in order to "spay" her. And when we picked her up, they showed us that "the sutures aren't inflamed, the incision site is very clean." (I took their word for it at the time; Star was wiggling all over like a crazed worm and I couldn't really see anything at all between her flailing legs.) And they warned us not to give her a bath, and keep her calm for several days.

What's worse, when we filled out the adoption paperwork, we felt sure she was already spayed. The guy helping us with the adoption forms said "Great, you can take her home today. That will free up space for more dogs!" Then he said "Oh, no, she hasn't been spayed, so you have to wait to take her home." The waiting was not a big deal--if they had actually spayed her. But they didn't. And what is implied by the guy's statement is that, because Star had to stay and take up a run for an additional three days, that meant some other dog got euth'd because there wasn't enough space.

Nice. Not that there's anything I can do about it now. I did gratefully give her a bath, though. She seemed happy to be clean and did a bunny hop across our lawn afterwards.

Adoption

We adopted a dog this weekend. She's approx. three years old, "buff" colored (greyish tan like a nice leather car interior), 40-50 lb. pit bull mix. Sweet, alert, good on a leash, intelligent and interested in learning, and seems friendly toward other dogs. The shelter called her Lula, but I'm going to call her Star.

She's getting spayed today, so she has to stay at the shelter until Tuesday. No pics yet, alas. The only one I have is a terrible photo obviously taken by the shelter immediately upon intake; she is cowering, and her eyes are big glowing yellow balls. Her photo is so bad that I didn't even consider her when I was doing a web search; I went to the shelter to look at a different dog and ended up checking her out as well.

I'm so excited, but also nervous. I have no idea how Dozer will do. The shelter did not require us to do a meet-and-greet, which was a huge relief. Instead, I am going to do the slowest possible intro--two weeks of crate and rotate--before bringing them together. Hopefully by then he will have accepted Star as a roommate (I think 'pal' is probably asking too much).

Now I've got to do some reading up. I haven't trained a green dog for years. Our comfy routine and our house rules are about to get all shaken up. The chaos will be similar to that created by a foster dog--but we're keeping this one, so I have to get my training cap on.

Sure, make this adoption a little more difficult

We've been trying to find a suitable dog to fill the hole left by Felanie. I have been taking my time, and I've had very high expectations: small adult female pit bull-type that is social and dog-friendly. That in itself narrows my options considerably.

And yet, no one seems particularly eager to rehome their adoptable dogs. To date, not a single local rescue group has bothered to respond to my general inquiries about adoption. I can't even seem to get in touch with them when I want to meet a dog they have posted on Petfinder. So I guess rescue groups are out.

That leaves shelters. And out of the six shelters in our area, two require meet-and-greets, which are guaranteed to go badly because of Dozer. No exceptions—I asked. So those are out. Three others do not require meet-and-greets, but refuse to do home visits (which might actually work for Dozer). If I adopt from any of these three, then, I'm going to have to make an on-the-spot decision.

Only one shelter does home visits. Not only that, but they allow overnights / trial runs! Perfect, right? Sure, if they had a dog there that met my criteria... but they don't.

Meanwhile, my visit to one shelter (one that recommends but does not require a meet-and-greet) netted a very promising dog that seemed to fit my criteria fairly well. I asked about the adoption process. When I explained my situation (meet-and-greet will not be a good idea) the lady helping me proceeded to advise me to look elsewhere for a shelter that would do a home visit! Yes, she was encouraging me to go away.

I ventured to suggest a trial period. The lady stared at me as if I had just fallen out of the ceiling. Then she said, "No. Once you adopt, the dog is yours permanently. You really should do a meet-and-greet. Just today we had several animals returned because they aren't getting along with the other critters in the house."

Okay, I just explained why a meet-and-greet won't work. But wait a sec. You won't do a trial period or an overnight. But it's okay for people to return the animals they adopt. Isn't that sort of the same thing? And wouldn't a trial prevent those much-lamented returns? At the very least, a trial run means one dog not sitting in a kennel going nuts, one dog not "taking up space," one dog weasling its way into a prospective adopter's heart.

I am utterly stumped. As much as I hate making a psuedo-commitment, the shelter system here has put me against a wall. How the heck am I supposed to adopt a suitable dog when nobody shows the least bit of interest in working with me (the exception being the lone shelter that allows overnights, but has no dogs that show potential)?

While our shelters refuse to help potential adopters (or treat them like loonies, which is something I keep running into whenever I ask a real question), and cling to their either-or philosophy ("either you take it home for keeps or you don't take it home at all"), all these dogs are being put to sleep.

I don't know why this is so difficult. Grr.