Maggie is a dog. She lives in a kennel in a no-kill dog shelter. She's been there for two years.
It is a good shelter, very clean, staffed by a crew of dedicated volunteers, well known in the local community. The dogs have roomy kennels with a warm dry bed area and a small covered exercise area. In addition there are three big outdoor play areas with trees and grass and wading pools.
Maggie doesn't play much. She's an older dog and very dominant. She's a magnificent animal. golden and svelt as a lioness, Her Bitchness, Queen of the Canines. She used to have a consort, a shy, beautiful male Belgian shepard mix, but he got adopted and now she's alone again.
Alone except for the voluinteer crew of which I am one. We take Maggie for walks along a county road every day. It's her connection to other living things, to humans, a way of keeping her socialized in the hope that some day someone will adopt her.
While I walk Maggie, she walks me. I have lost weight and feel healthier. I have become friends with several of the other volunteers.I go home full of stories to tell my husband. It's the lesson I have learned over and over: giving gives to the giver.
If you are interested in reading some dog stories, read on!
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Ladybug.
That's my knick name for a homely black lab pit bull mix. When I first met her she was a scarey amimal: small but mighty, a great barker, her little old face contorted with fear and anger, the fierce protector of her eleven babies. Ladybug was a little old stray, so old her face turned gray, and a mother again. Prapbably she has had a ltter every year of her life. Some kind people noticed her hanging around, scrounging for food, dodging mean kids who threw rocks at her. The kind people trapped her and brought her into the shelter. She was obviously nursing so they went back to the woods, hunted around and found the brood of babies. They also found a bigger puppy, a lovely little cinnamon colored mutt that was so terrified of people that they couldn't touch her. The kind people live trapped the bigger puppy, rounded up the little ones, and brought them all in.
Probably the bigger puppy was the sole survivor of Ladybug's previous litter.
It took about a week for Ladybug to realize that she was safe. Now she's a tailwagging facelicker. Her pups are weaned and are up for adoption. Lady herself now lives in the "geriactric ward", an extra big kennel that houses three other elderly dogs. I call them my bridge club: all of them are little black dogs with grey faces. All are arthritic, gentle, sweet, quiet little old dogs. I don't take them for walks. Mostly I just sit in the kennel with them.
Cinnamon, the pretty redgold puppy, got adopted today. She is still very shy but I'm sure she will come out of her shell once she realizes that her people, a very nice young couple, love her.
So happy ending, mostly. The little old ladies probably won't get adopted. However, they are happy dogs. Of the four only one comes from a good home (her people went into assisted living.) The others are better off now in a kennel then ever before in their lives and a very grateful for their comfortable beds, predictable food supply and safety.
I love old dogs.
Hope
Hope was a breeder reject. She was a rott pup but something happened to her face: birth defect? Anyway her eye lids were too tight so she couldn't see and her face was smashed in so that her toungue couldn't get all the way into her mouth. Her two big caninies jutted out in from of her nose. Poor sweet, she was about the ugliest dog I've ever seen. But she loved everybody. At seventy pounds she still considered herslef a lap dog. And she would unreel that tongue, all twelve inches of it and slather kisses like no other dog in the world.
The shelter paid for an operation on her eyes to open the lids up so she could see better. One eye improved but the other, well she doesn't get much use out of that one. But she doesn't care.
A very nice family with a couple kids adopted Hope. I still remember her big shiney black butt as she jumped inot their car. Not a doubt in her mind: she was going home!
Dingbat and Goofy Girl
I wrote about Lassie on this site once before: I was trying to find a home for her. She's still at the shelter and still available for adoption. I walk her nearly every day. She is the dog you always wanted: sweet, fun, happy, good with other dogs (usually!), sensitive and eager to please.
She's a pitbullmix. Yeah the evil killer death dog that will rip your face off and eat your children.
Well I shouldn't be so sarcastic I guess since I used to be afraid of pit bulls too. In fact when I first met Lassie I was afraid to pat her. I fed her out of compassion but it wasn't until I found her injured and suffering in my client's garage that I ever touched her.
It was Febuary and very cold. She was curled up on the funky old couch in the dark. I went in and sat beside her. Her face was crisscrosed with bloody lacerations and her front paws were swollen. I found out later fron the vet that she had had a litter at about that time. I never saw the pups so I asume that they died. Possibly she was injured while trying to defend them from raccooons or another dog. Anyway as I sat by her on the couch she snuggled up and lay her big blocky pitbull head in my lap and that's when I named her Lassie: because she needed to come home. She needed a home to come home to.
Sentimental? Sure. Love is what feeds our hearts. It's love that makes us happy. Fear makes us small and mean. So I petted her and promised that I would take care of her. And then as soon as I got the chance I got on line and studyied up on pitbulls. And now I'm not scared of them any more.
The media is greatly at fault: reporters don't do research. They just adopt narratives and report stories that re-enforce the narratives. Maybe some day I'll write up a piece about the breed but for now I'll just say this: the breed is not inherently any more dangerous than any other breed in the same size range. The media reports anecdotes. Anecdotes are not data. Pitbulls on temperment tests score higher than golden retrievers. They were bred to be dog aggressive but people social. Pits love people. They are also exceptionally trainable, because, like border collies, they almost obsessively want to please their person. They are unfortunately the fad dog of choice of sleazy nastly horrible people. Because of media sensationalism responsible people won't adopt them.
So good families come to the shelter looking for good family dogs and they pass my sweet, friendly, playful, goofy girl by. Rejected.
Lassie lived for two years as a neglected dog on a Native American reservation. The people on the res have a high tolerance for wandering dogs: they don't get trapped or shot or rounded up by dog catchers. On the other hand hardly anyone provides what I consider adequate care for their dogs: little spaying, nuetering, shots, vet vists. She was actually luckier than some dogs since she didn't spend her life chained up in the back yard lonely and miserable. That's what makes dogs mean.
I turned her into the shelter. I dragged her into my car (she was so scared she shook from head to toe) I took her to the vet who literally hauled her across the floor to the office. She got spayed and was so traumatized that she tore all of her stitches out, and she was taken to the kennel where out of nerevousness she chewed the fur off her tail and licked the fur off her back and sides.
All that and she never once so much as growled at anyone.
But no one will adopt her:evil pit bull mix.
I vist her nearly every day. At first she was so frantic tht she would cry like a baby when I left. I cried too. It took a couple months but she has finally settled in. She has a kennel mate that is her play buddy: Dingbat, real name Bandiit. Poor little bandit is too much dog for most people: he runs on batteries, that dog, never stops. Life for him is endless fullthrottle frolic. The two of them are hilarious together. They chase each other, grab each other by the ears, roll over and tussle, jump in and out of the wading pool...non stop action. Sometimes they unite in a digging campaign, shoulder to shuolder, heads in a hole, shovelling their way to China.
Goofy Girl likes to jump up and nip my arm to show affection. When I tell her No! she immediately sits because she knows that sitting pleases me. She sits so hard, with such dedication, butt on the ground, little floppy ears erect, eyes radiating their plea: "See me sitting? I'm a good dog!"
Yes, you are, sweetie. You are a good dog.
I walk dogs five days a week: Maggie the Magnificent, Lassie and her buddy, the old girls of my bridge club and more. If you want to see pictures of these wonderful dogs go to Adopt a Pet shelton washingon on your search engine and click their websight.
It is no trouble at all for me to do this. I'm addicted to it. Maybe those folks who reads this will feel like sharing a stories about how you give and what you get back.
Thanks