September 2020
After 19 years and nearly 200 dogs, we still have to come up with new approaches once in a while. Back in the middle of July we asked a previous adopter to look at Rory, a seven year old dog living on Mercer Island. His owner was moving out of the area to live with her sister, and there was no room for Rory. She wanted to find a good home in the northwest rather than place him in the muggy climate of Atlanta. Normally we foster a dog here for a while, but we have two males who don’t really love each other, and three wouldn’t work well. A full two weeks later we finally heard from the adopter, saying he decided Rory would not be a good fit. That put us in a bind, but we sent another adopter to meet Rory. It took her another three weeks to visit him twice and then decide to take him home. Some adopters are wonderful keeping us in the loop and others make us feel like tearing out our hair trying to get them to respond. This was the latter, but Rory finally made the move.
The first day there we had a call that Rory wasn’t getting along with her cats. The second day it was better, but then she said Rory was aggressive to them; he chased one and hurt it, but a day later she thought things would work out. The final call was on the sixth day when she said “Rory has to be gone today.” This is the thing we worry about most when we arrange a direct adoption and can’t meet a dog first. We immediately went through the applications on hand, trying to qualify the ones who would take a seven year old male (that ruled out 90%). We finally got down to two people and I called one of them. Although I had asked someone two days prior to do a home visit, there hadn’t been time yet. The call was quite positive, and the couple sounded like a good match. The woman even worked as a trainer in the past. That night Rory went to stay in a boarding kennel, and the next morning they drove from Lake Stevens to Ellensburg to pick him up. By the time he was in the car he looked comfortable with them. This is the first time we ever placed a dog in a home we hadn’t visited before, and the first time we chose an applicant whose app we received only a few days earlier. It’s also a record for the most time we spent in such a short time coordinating Rory’s new home. Kim Leslie, who was originally going to do a home visit, will now follow up with them in case they have any questions or need some advice.
Max has been here since February and we would love it if he ended up with us, even though he and our boy Rowdy don’t get along well. Max has gone from an aloof, independent dog to a friendly boy who likes to be with people. Still, much as we care for him, Max deserves to have his own family and be dog #1 instead of #6 as he is here. We found a great couple on the Oregon coast who have had Samoyeds all their lives, and they are coming to visit Max on the 17th. If they decide to take him it’s going to be hard to watch him leave. They promised to take him to a veterinary ophthalmologist to see about getting his tear duct unplugged, and we promised to pay for it.
We heard about Jack on a Facebook group. He was in the Adams County shelter after someone adopted him somewhere and decided during the trip home that she didn’t want him. People can be strange. After the shelter posted him as a Samoyed they decided he wasn’t one; the next day they decided for sure he was a Sammy, and promised to send some photos to us (the ones we saw certainly showed a Samoyed). They didn’t sent the pictures and a follow-up message got no response, so once again we don’t know what happened. It’s something we have grown used to, and we have to hope Jack found a good home.
A bright spot in the month was when Sue Yim sent photos of Sadie and Snowy, both of whom were adopted from us. You may remember when we found Katie, who turned out to be pregnant when she got here. She had three puppies; two went to a family in Portland and one, Sadie, went to Sue. Sadie is a bashful dog who doesn’t especially like to meet people, but each time she came for a picnic she was happy to see us. It’s the most flattering feeling in the world. Katie has been gone a long time, and Sadie’s two littermates have also passed, but Sadie is still doing well. Snowy has also been with Sue for years and the two dogs get along gre. We love to get updates on the dogs we have known.
