November 2016
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.
