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We saw a Craigslist ad early this month for a five year old female Samoyed someone wanted to re-home. We contact the poster, as we always do, and for a change they wrote back. We had a good conversation, and we learned the situation was the result of a divorce a few years ago. The couple stayed friends and shared their Sammy, but the husband was having tough times and they thought it would be better if their dog had a better home. We thought for a while we would have a dog to fill the need of one of our applicants, but they ultimately decided to find a long-term foster home. They know who we are now, and if they change their minds we’ll be here.

Rescue also had word of a found dog in north Seattle, but we weren’t able to connect. That happens more often than not, because people don’t know who we are. There is currently a lost dog in the Covington area and we offered help and advice. Beyond that, all we can do is hope for the best. The dog was returned to a breeder, who we consider a puppy mill, and she placed her with a woman without warning her to put tags on the dog. She wasn’t microchipped. Three days later someone left a door open. There was one sighting the same day but nothing since. We’ll hope for a good outcome.

These situations happen frequently, and are part of the reason we don’t place as many dogs as we used to. The ability of people to find another family to take their dog is much easier these days, and rescue isn’t part of the equation. At this writing we have almost 40 applications from families who want a Samoyed, and many are previous adopters we know are wonderful homes.

We have two dogs who are technically foster dogs but will never leave. Herbie arrived on July 4 last year on his 13th birthday. We were called by someone who heard a car in the driveway; after it left they found him in the yard. He arrived in terrible condition but has recovered nicely. He loves attention and is as friendly as any old Sam we’ve ever had. He doesn’t demand much (though he barks at dinnertime). His ears have been deep cleaned twice and are in pretty good shape now. His teeth were rotten, but after we determined he could probably make it through anesthesia he had a full dental and his teeth are great now. Of course his breath is much better, too. He has a large tumor on his chest the vet thinks is nothing to worry about.

The other is Princess, who was dropped off at the shelter in May, 2015, on her 11th birthday. We know from the shelter that she was bought as a puppy, left in the back yard, and ultimately taken to the shelter with another dog. She was so timid and scared when she got here we had trouble getting close. With lots of patience she found that humans are nice. Now she follows us around everywhere. She’s still timid, but we let her make her own decisions where she wants to be. The first few months we treated her for bad hips; now she’s running around the yard. The most rewarding thing we see in rescue is our Senior Sammies.

Last month we received a request from an author from Dogster, formerly Dog Fancy Magazine, who wanted pictures for an article on breeds that are frequently mispronounced. We connected her with Paul Martin, who generously shared his photos for a number of Sammy websites. The result is a short but fun article at http://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/these-5-breeds-want-you-to-stop-mispronouncing-their-names.

Over the last fifteen years or so, Northwest Samoyed Rescue (and our founding groups, SCWS Rescue and Samoyed Rescue of Oregon) has been blessed to have some incredibly generous people who support our work. Back when we began, Cheri said we should work toward a goal of having a completely self-funded group, enough money in the bank for the interest to cover all our expenses. We thought that would take a whole different level of funding, even though interest rates were higher then. Today, as we look back, we are on the way; still a small percentage of what we would need, but definitely able to handle what comes our way.

Over those years we have helped some extraordinarily expensive Sammies. Right off the bat we had a couple cranial cruciate ligament repairs (usually called ACL repairs), and those were substantial. We have helped with leg repairs many times since. Two years ago we had Lily, who had a growth plate fracture that was never repaired. Our vet, who usually does our orthopedic work, said we needed a specialist because her leg healed abnormally. The fix was to re-break it, cut off the end of the bone, and re-attach it at a different angle. The specialist from Portland did it in our vet’s office and gave us a break on price for rescue; it ended up at only $4,900. Contrast that to the days when we had to get board approval to spend more than $200.

A few years back, we had Freya. She lived in a shed for several years and had entropion, a painful condition where the eyelashes grew against her eyes. She wasn’t the most expensive dog to go through rescue, but she was one of the most rewarding. Take a look at what happened to her life. She went from neglect to the lap of luxury and love.

Recently we were contacted by adopters who had gone through more than $10,000 with their Sammy. We were able to give a small grant directly to their vet, and we helped them through the application to SamUrgency, a wonderful charity that helps pay medical bills for Samoyeds.

Almost constantly we had many old dogs with all those senior ailments; ear-cleanings, growth-removals, and meds for sore joints. We have been able to cover all those because of your generosity, and we want you to know how much we appreciate it. It’s because of rescue that these dogs have a good life today, and it’s because of you that rescue could help them.

Thank you for your support. Words can’t express how grateful we are to our donors.

A month and a half ago someone posted about a lost Samoyed, saying they were afraid someone picked him up and took him because his coat looked so bad. We offered to help, but it wasn’t necessary because a neighbor had picked him up, thinking he was a stray, and he made his way back home. Because we posted him on Facebook, a friend in North Dakota wrote to suggest he might have an endocrine problem. We sent them some links, and received another update; he is now being treated for Cushing’s disease and his coat is getting better. One of our previous rescue dogs, Scooter, is also being treated for Cushings successfully. Although it’s serious the treatment is better than it used to be. Scooter also had recent surgery for removal of bladder stones, of which he had 70. Because his vet is close to us, we kept Scooter here overnight so his family didn’t have to make two more lengthy trips. He’s still the cool dog he was when we had him the first two times, and he now has the family he always deserved to have. Here’s a picture we took at the picnic in September.

A while back we posted about Herbie, who came to us at 13 years old about six months ago. His health has improved remarkably, and he acts like he is so grateful to be living in a home now where he sleeps indoors. He is patient with our new boy and all the girls. We talked about whether we should put him under anesthesia at his age, but his health is enough better we are going to have some much-needed dental work done soon. While he’s out, the vet will also remove a growth on his eyelid that has been getting larger and might be rubbing his eye. We have been working on cleaning his ears, but he may need some help there, too. He loves the cold weather, and dozes out in the yard. Meanwhile, Princess continues to learn we can be trusted and now follows one of us around the house wherever we go. It has been a slow road, but incredibly rewarding.

Northwest Samoyed Rescue doesn’t sell a calendar, but there are two other Samoyed Rescue groups we recommend for the quality of theirs. MidAtlantic Samoyed Rescue and North Texas Samoyed Rescue both have excellent quality calendars that you’ll enjoy all year. More importantly, they are groups who absolutely deserve your money. Check out their calendars here (MASR) and here (NTSR).

And speaking of money, it’s the time of year many people make donations to their favorite charities. We have been fortunate over the years to have a large number of generous friends. Because of that, we’d like to propose you help two other rescues this year. They are the same two who have calendars, and both are run by volunteers who have been rescuing Sammies for years and years; both could use a little help right now. The best way to do that is to use PayPal to send something to MASR (click here) or NTSR (click here). Please contact Ron for their addresses if you would rather send a check. Thank you.

You’ve heard this before, but rescue has changed remarkably in the past few years. It’s not just the number of dogs; it’s the way we work to find them. Nearly everything is online now. We respond to Craigslist ads, listings on Petharbor, Petfinder, and others. More dogs come into rescue after an email than come from shelters. Unfortunately, most of the time when we respond to an ad, we don’t hear back. When someone does find us, and knows what we do, we have a good chance of helping place a dog.

Over the past ten years we have been accumulating donations of some very nice items. Some of them went with Kathy and Melissa to the National for sale there, but we have a lot more. Here’s where we issue our annual call for anyone who has experience with eBay. An auction would be the right way to offer these things to the Samoyed world, but we need someone experienced to do it. Could that be you, and would you like to help rescue?

When we foster dogs in our homes, we always end up keeping the oldest of them because they can’t be placed. In May 2015 we took in Princess, who was eleven, which makes her twelve and a half now. On July 4 this year we took in Herbie, who is well past thirteen. We enjoy the seniors, but the other side of the coin is that we say goodbye to a lot of dogs. In fact, we lost twelve dogs in the past fifteen years. Right now, of our five dogs, the dog we’ve had the longest is Sasha, who has been here less than five years. When we had a chance recently to adopt a 15-month old Samoyed, we took advantage of it. His name is Rowdy, and it fits him perfectly. He fits into our pack like he was meant to be here. He and Lily run circles around each other and enjoy their time playing, and Sasha offers him the end of her rope and ends up sliding across the room as he pulls her along. Even Princess has been running like a puppy, so his arrival has been positive.

Rowdy’s former owner asked us to let her know if he ever sired a litter because he is such a cool dog. Then we looked at his papers, which set a record for the least champions ever on 5-generation pedigrees. His coat is long and wavy all the way down his back, and his conformation is, to be kind, not quite ring quality. What he has going for him is a personality that’s wonderful. He loves people and other dogs, and he’s a real catch. We are working on training, since he had none at all when he arrived. He truly wants to please and that makes it much easier. The evening this report was written, he dumped all the flower pots on the deck and scattered their contents, so you know Rowdy is a true Sammy.

Let’s start this with a reminder why rescue matters to our entire community. Last month two older Sammies were posted on the animal shelter website in Calgary, Alberta. One was eleven years old; the other was eight. Lisa, who does rescue for the Western Canada Samoyed Club, made a connection with the shelter and, after several tries, was brought in to help place the old boys. When she got there she recognized the older dog. He was a prior winner of the SAC National, and was later placed in a pet home. The family went through a divorce and dumped the dogs in the shelter without contacting the breeder. Lisa knew who to call, and the dogs were reunited with the breeder, who is retired now. The same thing happened to us once, and we were able to recover a girl and find her breeder. Our predecessor, Cheryl, told us a hundred times “It’s all about the dogs.” In the northwest, we appreciate the relationship we have with breeders. We all work together.

Kathy and Melissa just returned from what must be the best-run National in the history of the club. They enjoyed meeting a lot of the people we know, and our two dogs, Melissa’s Boomer and Kathy’s Lily, were part of the rescue parade. Along with them were Lynn and Grace, Anita and Freya, Fritse and Samson, Joan and Misty, and Amanda with Halo (from San Francisco Samoyed Rescue). The audience loves the rescue parade almost as much as the participants do. We hope to have pictures of the parade in next month’s rescue report.

A number of scams have been increasing in past months. We’ve been fighting Craigslist posts for a long time. Scammers post non-existent puppies for sale. The usual course is to ask for a deposit, then more money for shots, then a second payment for flying them. Eventually it escalates when there is a “problem.” These lowlifes seem to be based offshore, and email addresses are funneled through a series of websites that are difficult to trace. Fortunately, the people behind these don’t know anything about the breed, and often brag about puppies being from a “merle mother,” or some other ridiculous description. The newest predators are creating websites that look quite convincing. They steal pictures from existing websites and make it look real. Their prices are usually a little bit under market price, so they attract people looking for a better price. Please let your friends know if something looks too good to be true, it’s not true. Our breed is lucky to have an attorney member of SCA who is aggressively working with the FBI to try to stop them.

Princess arrived here in May last year. She came to us as a scared girl who had been bought as a puppy and put in the back yard; at eleven years old she was taken to the shelter because they didn’t want her. Since then she has become one of our favorite success stories. Although she is still wary of new people, and has some peculiar habits, she has become a dog who wants very much to be with us. Her coat is beautiful and she is healthy and at the correct weight now. Lately she has finally begun playing with other dogs. It really makes our job special to see a dog become so happy. Here are pictures of her on the way from the shelter, then this month at home.

Herbie has adapted well to life as a foster dog. We’re trying to decide whether, at thirteen years old, we should put him through anesthesia to have dental work, a growth on his eyelid removed, and a large tumor aspirated to see what it is. We’re taking a wait-and-see approach to him. He has chosen a few favorite spots, and sleeps most of the day. If you’ve never lived with a senior dog you’ve never experienced the unconditional love they bring.

In recent years, Rescue Picnic attendance has fallen off because we place fewer dogs. You may recall we had to reschedule our picnic from July 9 to September 10 after Jack died from Canine Respiratory Coronavirus, but we ended up with a great bunch of adopters and had a wonderful time talking about our dogs.

In the past year we have seen an increase in the number of scams on Craigslist. Most offer puppies for sale at less than market price, and they all have similar text. The bogus ads are usually posted in multiple cities on the same day. They all say the same thing, and they all have errors. When we can find the picture on some other website (they are all stolen) we try to notify the owner. Sometimes it looks like someone is using a random description generator, such as the ad below, which is ridiculous.

White colored Samoyed boy and girl to rehome. Turned 11 weeks
old two days ago. She is out of a lavender merle parti mother by a
sable male. Daddy is 4 lbs and mother is 8lbs. Puppy has had first
puppy shots, been dewormed. CKC registerable. Asking 300 to
rehome, can include rest of puppy shots, microchip, spay, and a
years worth of heartworm and flea preventative. Second picture is
mother and third is father [note: there was only one picture].

Fortunately, Holley is always on the job and sends these links to a group of us who mark them “prohibited.” Slowly we are able to get them removed, but no doubt they catch a few trusting people.  Just this month we began seeing websites doing the same thing. Like anything else online, be careful!

And finally this month, we have begun moving toward an orderly transition for Northwest Samoyed Rescue. After the picnic a group of us sat and talked about the path forward. We are not making major changes any time soon, but we have begun planning.

It’s your turn in the ring!

The Samoyed National is coming to Albany, Oregon, the week of October 10.  We’re having a Rescue Parade, and it’s scheduled for Tuesday, October 11. All our adopted dogs (and all other rescue Sammies) are invited to attend. It’s a chance for your dog to get a chance in the ring while we tell the world how special he or she is. We need you to be there! There is an entry form at http://sca2016.com/index.php/rescue-parade/. PLEASE fill it out and come join us for a good time. Deadline is September 23.

The 2016 Rescue Picnic is rescheduled for Saturday, September 10. The invitations will go out soon, and we hope you can come. As always, please RSVP with Ron (ron@nwsams.com) because we need an accurate count.

Last month we had a request from a woman in China who said she is saving dogs from the meat markets there. She asked us to help by bringing them to the US and finding homes for them. We answered that we were part of a group that brought one of the first Korean Sammies over, and we were glad it was successful, but we lost money doing it. Our primary concern in going out of our area is that we always ask a volunteer to put hands on a dog before we take it into rescue. We have to know the dog is a purebred Samoyed, and that the temperament is what we expect. It’s impossible to do that in a different country. We have a lot of sympathy for those dogs, but we also know what we’re capable of doing here. The northwest is our home, and it’s where we are chartered to help dogs.

A breeder in Wyoming asked for help placing a seven and a half year old female Samoyed. She doesn’t like small dogs and will attack them, though she gets along with other Sammies. We tentatively agreed to help him look for a home for her, and we wrote to two possibilities. There was no answer from either, so we asked Denver Samoyed Rescue if they would like to be involved. It turned out they actually know him, so they will be taking lead. She is a very nice dog with one definite problem, but in the right home it would be no problem.

For the last couple years we have been asking for someone to step up and help us with our eventual transition to new blood in Northwest Samoyed Rescue. We recently had a productive conversation with a northwest couple interested in helping. We plan to continue for a long time to come, but if we believe what we say, “it’s all about the dogs,” we have to consider the future. When we have something to announce, you’ll hear it here.

Our waiting list continues to grow. We now have 35 families waiting, and five of those are previous adopters. With only three or four dogs coming into rescue each year that means a long time before we find one for them. It says a lot about our breed that most of them are willing to continue waiting.

On June 19 we picked up a young Sammy male about two and a half years old. The story was that he ran away from home, and his owner decided to teach his children a lesson in responsibility by not picking him up at the shelter. Just when you think you heard everything, something like this happens. We have a good relationship with the Everett shelter so they told us the exact minute his stray hold would be up so we could be there. Erin and Tom were able to get him and report his family never showed up. His name is Juneau, though he didn’t answer to it at the time. That says a lot about his previous life.

On June 27, our boy Jack developed a cough. It didn’t seem too bad, but on the 30th we found him on the floor, stretched out with his head up trying to breathe. We rushed him to the vet where they told us he had pneumonia. It’s usually bacterial, and sometimes happens after a dog aspirates some water while drinking. We left him at the vet for three days, picking him up each evening and returning him each morning because they have no overnight staff. They were going to be closed for three days over the holiday so we brought him home with fluids to give sub-q twice a day. Sunday he seemed to improve a bit, and our vet-tech friend was here to check on him. During the night he was restless, wanting to be carried outside about 4 am, then put back on the bed. Shortly after that his body gave up and we lost him.

Two days earlier we discussed the idea of getting him tested for doggie flu, just in case, because of the upcoming picnic. The results didn’t come until three days after he died, and we were stunned to find Jack had Canine Respiratory Coronavirus, an extremely contagious virus that was first discovered only in 2003. There is no vaccine and no treatment except to let it run its course. The only strange dog in the past couple months was Juneau, but he showed no signs of illness. It meant we had to test him too, which took another five days.

Of course that meant we had two days to cancel the Rescue Picnic. We tried to contact every person on the invitation list, all the club members, and we posted on several Facebook groups and pages. We put a sign at the head of our driveway explaining what happened and that nobody should proceed to the house because we didn’t know if any of the dogs might be contagious. As far as we know, nobody showed up.

We have three other dogs who showed no sign of illness. Unfortunately, we took in another foster dog before the test result was in, and he is 13 years old. For 8 more days, until the results came back, we held our breath waiting for him to cough. We are relieved to say he didn’t, and the test on Juneau was negative on the entire panel. Juneau will be going to his new home before you read this.

The new guy’s name is Herbie, and he is a love bug. Herbie is an enormous dog, 94 pounds, but also the tallest boy we have had here. If you have a long memory, he’s just a little smaller than Tramp. He arrived with a very matted coat, caked-on feces, bad infections in both ears, and he walked like he hurt. The woman who called us said a car turned around in her rural driveway and he appeared in her yard a couple minutes later. In only a week Herbie has improved considerably. Kathy is making progress with his coat, we are treating his ears, and we will have to decide whether he is too old to clean his teeth. We took him as a permanent hospice dog and he will live out his life here.

And now back to Juneau. His new family planned to bring their 11 year old boy to meet him the day before the picnic, but we called that off because of the indecision about the virus. They came to visit without their dog, and we could see it was a great match. Now that he is proven negative for a virus, they are planning to pick him up as soon as possible.

In tribute to Jack

We first met Jack at the Olympia Animal Shelter in November 2013, where he had been dropped off by his family. He was about 8 years old, but they gave very little information beyond that. We brought him here and discovered a big goofy boy who weighed 116 pounds. He had no hair on his back and his tail was nearly naked. Our vet suspected a thyroid problem, and when tests confirmed it we put him on thyroid supplements twice a day. A couple in Graham was interested so we placed Jack with them. The house was bit unusual, but we work with dog people and we’re used to eccentricity.

They called about nine months later and said Jack “wasn’t friendly.” Within a few minutes Kathy was on the way to pick him up, and when he entered the house again it was with a smile and a wag. Jack stayed here, and he was as affectionate, mellow, and happy as a dog could be. With lots of love and not nearly as much kibble, Jack’s weight came down to 60 pounds. He moved easily and without effort. He wanted nothing more than to be next to us, day and night. Jack was about 11 when he passed, and he leaves an enormous hole in our hearts.

Our 17th annual Rescue Picnic is right around the corner. All our adopters and volunteers, plus all SCWS members, are welcome. This year it’s Saturday, July 9 at our home near Tenino. If you think you can make it, please RSVP to Ron (ron@nwsams.com). Although this is a potluck picnic, we need to know how many people are attending.

A few weeks ago there was a request for a visit to a hospice patient in Albany, Oregon. The original request came from family in England, and it was passed through Facebook by a breeder in the Midwest. They said their father loved Samoyeds and would like to see one again. Our adopters and volunteers are the most generous bunch of people in the world. Within an hour of getting the request, an adopter and a volunteer both said they could visit. Many thanks to Anita and Natalie.

Our application has many questions, one of which is whether the applicant would be interested in a mix. We heard of one in Portland, and it turned out that five people in the general area had checked yes, so we hope the Sammy mix (who is with another rescue group) will find a home with someone who appreciates her. Our waiting list is long, and the reason we don’t publicize dogs when we get them. People continue to ask for dogs even though we get so few, and as a result we have a waiting list with over three dozen families on it. Times have changed from the days we took in 12-15 dogs a year. For two years in a row we have helped only 4 dogs each year, which means a big part of getting a dog from us will be patience.

The Snowball of April is now the Ollie of May. In other words, Snowball moved to SeaTac to live with Erin and Tom, who named him Ollie. Sometimes dogs are meant to be part of a family, and it happened with lucky Ollie. He came back to us for two weeks so his new sister Abby could recover from knee surgery; when they left him, he had lived there for less than a week, but his eyes were on them as they left. When they came back for him, we thought he might turn inside out with happiness. Dogs have a way of telling us when things are what they want. Ollie is a very fortunate dog to have everything in his life he could ask for.

Early this month many Samoyed Rescue groups around the country heard from a small shelter in Wisconsin. They were about to visit a breeder and seize a large number of Samoyeds and they didn’t have the resources to handle them. Northwest Samoyed Rescue formed a quick alliance with three other groups, Playing Again Sams of Wisconsin, Denver Samoyed Rescue, and MidAtlantic Samoyed Rescue (the latter being the group that took three dozen Sammies in late 2011). We have all worked together before in different ways, and we made an offer to the shelter to help pay for boarding for all the dogs. They are a poor county and their animal control doesn’t have much budget.

It was done with a lot of secrecy. Things like this have a way of finding drama, and then swarms of good Samaritans who call the shelter, and then confusion, and finally things fall apart because shelter staff don’t have time (years ago a shelter put down a dog because they didn’t have time to talk to all the people who called, and we don’t want that to ever happen again). The day before they were scheduled to visit, the very large Wisconsin Humane Society stepped in and agreed to house all the dogs. The shelter agreed.

On the day of the visit, WI Humane came along. The breeder, who had first been visited two months ago and given time to correct bad conditions, had made most of those corrections. New kennels, cleaning, and better facilities meant no citations. She agreed to surrender a dozen dogs we were told were “unlicensed,” and the press release said she did it willingly because she was overwhelmed.

From the time we were contacted until the morning after the visit to the breeder, we understood we would be paying the boarding and would be able to place the dogs. We were looking for options to transport the dogs west (wherever we could get a driver or a cooperating airline). We spent several days trying to make contacts. At the very least we expected to send people who were waiting for dogs to Milwaukee. Maria, from the Wisconsin rescue group, tried to warn us about the HS, saying they don’t work well with rescues. And she was right. When they took the dogs, their intent was always to adopt them themselves, and to the first people who showed up with money. Their rates are far higher than any rescue would ever charge. No doubt it’s the reason they have assets of 22 million dollars.

For us, and the other rescues, it’s disappointing we aren’t able to help our applicants find dogs. It’s frustrating we can’t ensure these beautiful dogs are treated like the unique breed they are. Although our lives got easier, someone said something that made us stop and think. They compared some large Humane Societies to backyard breeders. They both profess love for dogs, but then sell to whomever shows up with the money. They don’t qualify buyers, they give only routine medical care, and they don’t know the breed. Playing Again Sams, the long-time and well-respected Samoyed Rescue group in Wisconsin, is almost certainly going to see some of these dogs again someday because they will be badly placed. And the bottom line is that we can’t do a thing about it.

None of us in rescue have mentioned the breeder’s name, and you won’t see it here. It was a hoarding situation, caused as most are by things that just got out of control. Hoarding is a mental illness and we hope she gets help for it. We’re going to try to stay in contact with the shelter we heard from first, and in the future we will help only under very controlled conditions.

It’s been an adventure this month.