November 2018
Over the past couple months we have been bringing Sophie and Tessa into the house more hours each week. Living in the garage means they would never be integrated into a pack, and that’s the goal. Since their outdoor area is on the far side of the garage from the rest of the house, Kathy reconfigured the x-pens so they would have a path back and forth, but during the day they are now in our laundry room with access to the kitchen. They have both regressed around me, but Kathy is able to feed both of them from her hand. That’s a big deal. They will probably never be adjusted to men because I’m not able to get down on the floor to work with them, but as long as Kathy is able to work with them we’ll take what we can get. Before they moved into the house, Kathy was able to sit and pet them inside an x-pen, but we haven’t forced the issue after the move. That’s coming soon, we hope. We have to get our garage back and bring our cars under cover. Kathy’s baby, her 1970 Buick (which she got brand new), is parked out in the weather full time.
The thing we worried about most, an escaping puppy mill girl, happened this month. Fena was able to dash out the door unexpectedly at Kathi’s home and ran into the woods and hid. Kathi called animal control, who brought a live trap, and after a night out Fena was captured. We’re all breathing easier now. So far it sounds as it she isn’t any worse for the experience, and she continues to improve under Kathi’s care. We decided to order a live trap to have on hand, both for rescue dogs and to loan to our rescue friends in an emergency.
Sadly, we lost Herbie a couple weeks ago. He was obviously not feeling well, panting with pain (we don’t know from what), and not willing to leave the deck to do his business in the yard. We gave him a lot of Tramadol his last week, hoping he would improve, but we finally had to bow to necessity and let him go. Herbie came to us on the fourth of July two years ago when a woman called to say she heard a car in her driveway and went out to find him. Erin and Tom left a holiday party to pick him up and bring him to us, and he wasn’t in very good shape. It was obvious he had been outdoors for a long time; we found a microchip that yielded us his age (he was 13), but the people on the registration had moved and not updated the chip information. He improved over time and we quickly decided he was such a love bug his name should be Herbie. Over the two years we had him, the only thing he asked for was a scratch and an soft pillow to doze on. When he left us he was 15 years, 3 months old, and we’re glad we could make his final years good ones.
We first met Dennis and Terry Jeppesen soon after we began doing rescue in 2001. At the time, our biggest backyard breeder in the northwest was a woman in Forks, who asked us to pick up a hemophiliac dog. We said yes, and quickly learned the problem was bad teeth, a condition called enamel hypoplasia. That was Jade, and we met Dennis and Terry when they came to adopt her. They already had a dog named Sonoma they got from Cheryl. Over the years we saw them a lot, and there was never a question how much they loved Samoyeds. Dennis passed away last month, and in his obituary (https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/everett-wa/dennis-jeppesen-8005522) Northwest Samoyed Rescue was listed as a place to send donations. We heard from many of his friends, and we deeply appreciate their caring.