March 2022
Brand new in rescue is Banjo, a 7-month-old male. He was purchased by a man in the Everett area who was unable to cope with the energy level of a Samoyed puppy. His family contacted us and asked for help, and on March 11th, Erin and Tom met one of the family and brought Banjo to us. He spent the night and moved on to Melissa on the 12th. She will foster him for the time it will take to find a home, which shouldn’t be long. Banjo came from Whispering Pines Mastiffs in Idaho, the family that has been responsible for many of the Samoyeds in rescue or on Craigslist. They don’t do health testing, they sell to anyone with the money, and the pedigrees would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. The man who had him has significant health issues and Banjo is completely untrained, hasn’t been outdoors often, and is not housetrained. Fortunately, he is unusually mellow for his age and gets along with other dogs. We are going through our list of applicants and expect he will be in a new home soon.
About the time Banjo left here, we received an email from a breeder in Oregon alerting us to a Craigslist post about a 6-month-old male in the Medford. He was listed as “free to a good home,” so she contacted the woman who has him and suggested she email us, which she did a few minutes afterward. We emailed her contact information and the link to nineteen of our applicants, all of whom marked “purebred or mix” on their app. There is a difference of opinion within rescue as the whether he is a gangly adolescent or a mix, so we are calling him a mix for now. Recently we referred a family to a Samoyed in Port Angeles; they wondered if the dog they adopted was purebred, so they did a DNA test and found he is a purebred – a purebred Siberian Husky.
Kona and Shadah are also with Melissa, and both are doing better. Kona came from a shelter in Idaho, and although we don’t have the back story, we believe she might also have come from Whispering Pines. Shadah is an older girl Melissa says is no trouble at all. Now that Shadah is on a special diet, her skin problems are clearing up. All of us appreciate the easygoing senior dogs.
Luna is a puppy in the Salem area. We were asked to help because she had a broken leg and a ruptured ACL. The woman who wrote us got her from a bad situation, and her leg was already broken. Initially her vet recommended amputation because of the severity. She is in love with Luna, but her own health challenges make it difficult to care for her. We were willing to take Luna, or even help out financially. As of now, Luna is with the woman’s daughter and doing better. The vet suggests leaving the leg and allowing scar tissue to hold things together. No matter how much we would like to consult our own vets, Luna isn’t in rescue and all we can do is try to support her.
Bella’s cancer has slowed, now that she is on thyroid meds, but her breathing is getting raspy and we know it’s a matter of time. When she leaves us she will leave a giant hole in our hearts. Meanwhile the meds have increased her energy and she is running easily around the yard. When Banjo was here she played like a puppy. She seems to be enjoying life.
Sophie and Tessa will be fearful as long as they live together, because they feed off each other’s fear. They are going through a lengthy spell now where they won’t come in the house except at bedtime. It means Kathy has to walk them several times a day, which is something they really don’t like. If we could split them up we know they would be better, but they are a tremendous flight risk and nobody has stepped forward offering to take one. We would require a home with an absolutely secure fence with no way a dog could escape out a door to an unfenced area. If either of them got loose, we would never see them again. We are appealing to everyone to consider whether they would be able to help.
Terry, one of our previous adopters, is planning to go to Alaska to meet a Samoyed named Elune we told her about. As of now, the trip is scheduled for early next month.
As you can tell, this has been a busy month. It points out the dilemma we are in now. Our four principals in Northwest Samoyed Rescue are getting old, and we need relief. The two couples we added to our board a few years ago are unable to take over the day-to-day running of the rescue, which requires immediate action when necessary. We don’t have enough foster homes; at this time we have six foster dogs split equally between our two homes. When we are gone, the rescue may go with us, and it would mean no Samoyed Rescue in the Pacific Northwest. That would especially impact the senior dogs we foster as hospice dogs, who have no other options.