May 2015
After six months without taking in a dog, we have two fosters who arrived a day apart.
Last month we had a call asking us to take a dog who lived in Woodinville. The people didn’t have time for her and they thought she should have a family better suited to care for her. It’s the most often heard excuse for giving up a dog, and it’s the lamest. It usually means “we bought a dog from a backyard breeder and they didn’t tell us how much work it would be.” In this case it also means mom and daughter wanted a dog, but dad didn’t and he finally won. Sophie is quite overweight and has a thyroid problem probably related to weight. It makes her frantic to get to food. She is gradually losing weight here and has gone from 88 to 83 in a month. That’s about as fast as we want to change her. Her family walked her because they don’t have a fence, so she is used to a leash.
Despite her past being relegated to one room in the house, Sophie is a truly sweet girl who absolutely loves people. We are looking for a strong home with people who understand her past and can see a wonderful future with her. We’re sure that weight loss will help her thyroid deficiency and may even eliminate it. She is a remarkably strong alpha bitch.
We had a call from a family in Centralia last month saying someone gave them a dog. From their story, a guy they didn’t know was walking down the street while they were in the yard, and he said he had been kicked out of his house, had nowhere to go, and would they take his dog? They took him to their vet for a quick check and a microchip scan but nothing was found. They kept him for three weeks and realized he was too large for their house; they already had two small dogs. That’s when we got the call.
The first thing we do with any dog is scan it for a chip. We’ve had too many cases where someone missed it, and this was another. He was chipped with the newer Home Again ISO chip, which doesn’t register on older readers. We called, and an hour later received a phone call from his owner, who said he ran away three weeks before. It means the guy who gave up his dog was not telling the truth. More than likely he found the dog and wanted to pass the responsibility to someone else. Doesn’t matter at this point. But it gets better.
The dog was brought home by the woman’s husband one day; he was at a building supply store and someone there asked if he wanted a dog. He said his wife would like it, and that’s how he got there. They didn’t have a fence so he kept running off, usually heading for the neighbor who had kids playing outside. She thought neutering would stop his running, so in February she had that done. At the same time they implanted a microchip, and that’s how we ended up with a long story. As she now knows, neutering doesn’t stop a Samoyed from running. Her only reason for wanting him back was to sell him and get something back for the vet expenses, so we made a deal. We paid part of the vet bill, since we would have had to do that anyway, and she signed him over to rescue.
His name is Samson, making him the third of that name we’ve seen. His conformation is better than most backyard dogs, and we think we might know his origin. About two years ago we heard of a woman in the area who had two litters of Sammies and was selling them from the back room of a business. It’s entirely likely he was one of them. Samson is one of the most easy going dogs we’ve had in a long time, getting along with six other Sammies and sleeping on the bed next to Kathy at night. We have someone scheduled to adopt him on the 16th and they will be very fortunate people to get this guy.
Your rescue board has been seriously discussing a problem we’re having. We have a lot of volunteers and supporters and they are well appreciated. We couldn’t do rescue without their help. But there is a major problem. We can usually find help with things that take an hour or two, but we can’t find foster homes anywhere. What that means is we have been carrying the load among ourselves, and we’re getting old and tired. Ron and Kathy have been doing this since 2003. Melissa and Terry have done it much longer. Unless we find someone to help us with fostering, we’re going to end up folding the group and walking away and leaving the northwest without a Samoyed Rescue presence.