November 2008
In November we usually have some nasty weather and the usual phrase is “it’s raining cats and dogs.” Well, no matter what the weather does this month we can say it’s raining dogs. Since we started rescue we’ve never had a Fall with this much activity.
First the good news. Esau, the 12 year old in Oregon who needed a new home because his owner is now working nights, has the home he needed. His vet found a place for him with someone looking for an old dog. Also, I forgot last month to give a report on Nikki, the young Sammy girl in Centralia. Her family thought they weren’t able to give her the time and exercise she needed, but then the son, his wife, and two grandkids moved back into the house. Nikki has all the stimulation she needs now and everybody loves her so she will stay where she is.
Jasmine was in the Kalispell shelter in Montana when we heard of her. Sandy Nelson came to the rescue by picking her up and fostering her until we worked out transportation. Sandy gave her a ride to Coeur d’Alene and Kathy picked her up there. We arranged a meeting in North Bend with an adopter from Snohomish. Kim Leslie had done a home visit and thought it would be a good place for a rescue dog. The meeting went well and the whole family fell for Jasmine on first sight. We’ve had a couple updates and everything is working out perfectly for her.
Ky and Lola are a Samoyed and Chihuahua in the Bend area whose elderly owner passed away. A family friend was trying to place them and asked us for assistance. Our first step was to publish a group of pictures on the NW Sams website and begin writing to people. We got in touch with one of the adopters on our waiting list, and just before he went to visit the Sammy the two dogs were placed together by the friend.
Button and Kayla came into rescue within days of each other but from different circumstances. Early this year Melissa was approached by a woman who wanted us to take her dog because she was sick and they couldn’t afford treatment. We offered to pay the vet directly so she could keep Kayla, and she took the offer. Kayla has a slightly enlarged heart and a cough we were told they couldn’t diagnose. In October we heard from the woman again, telling us her landlord was coming to visit and she wasn’t supposed to have a dog. This time we took Kayla to prevent her from being dumped at a shelter, and immediately saw her as a hospice dog. She is about ten years old, overweight, and her nails were so long they stuck out to the sides; it obviously hurt her to walk and we trimmed a half inch from some of them. She had large areas of skin problems. We still don’t know her exact ailments, but after weeks on an antibiotic and Prednisone she seems to feel much better and her cough has decreased 90%. She is getting downright bouncy. When all the meds are completed we will reassess her condition, and whether she will live out her days here or get a new home of her own. She is a joy to have in the house.
Button was found as a stray near Warrenton, Oregon, and taken to the Clatsop County shelter. Her breeding looked good, and since that’s an area with many tourists we thought she might have been lost on vacation. Unfortunately for Button nobody came looking, a post on Show Sams brought no results, so Joy made the trip to the beach to get her. That was the day before Melissa picked up Kayla, so she brought Kayla to Ron and Kathy to foster and brought Button along for pictures. That was on October 18, and on the first of the month Button went to her new home with Daphne and Matthew, who had given a wonderful home to Bella until she passed away early this year.
Two female Samoyeds popped up in the shelter in Pasco on October 28. They appear to be mother and daughter and the mother is purebred; she is also missing one leg. Sarah and Paul Tragesser went to the shelter quickly and took some pictures for us and we looked for a foster home. On the morning of the 8th they picked up the dogs and drove them to meet Erin and Tom Sitterley, who will foster them for us. Their new names are Pogo and Cedar. On the 10th they went to the vet, where it was determined that Pogo’s missing leg was likely due to an accident while they were strays. It looks like the result of a snare, a trap, or perhaps someone tied something around her leg. The leg is now infected and she is on antibiotics. They are both intact and we’re looking into a low cost spay clinic in the Seattle area. The two dogs are tightly bonded because of the experiences they went through together, and we are going to give them time away from each other to let their personalities develop. Pogo is about three years old and Cedar appears to be around nine months old.
Nanook is in the Eugene area, purchased from a pet store, and at 18 months old he has torn ACLs in both back legs. He is lame, in pain, and his owner can’t afford surgery. We are exploring options to get surgery done and get him through recovery, but because his owner is gone 11 hours a day and living in a second floor apartment, she will have to surrender him to rescue first. We think we have funding for the surgery but what we don’t have is a place for him to recover. This surgery means confinement and walking carefully on a leash for several months. So far nobody has stepped forward to help.