Some Good Kids

Life continues marching onward at the Garden. There has been a lot of staff shuffling in DogTown over the last month or so and we lost Lupie to another area, so for the time being, it is just Jake and I at the Garden. We have some candidates coming out starting Monday to do their two week evaluations for several open caregiver positions, so hopefully we will have a third person in the next month or two. Before Lupie left us, I hijacked her camera for a night and downloaded some of the photos she has taken during her time at the Garden (and some that I took with her camera). Since I feel like everything is pretty redundant a lot of the time, I don't often get inspired to write much on the blog, hence the increasingly long spans between posts. So, today, I decided to do some photo posting!

This is Finn (and I). Finn will always hold a special place for me because I found him. One day around Easter as I was getting ready to leave for work his little head popped around the back bumper of my car and looked to me for some help. He had no collar and didn't look familiar but he was very friendly so I looped a leash around his neck and called animal control. (Side note: Just because I work at BF doesn't mean I can bring any dog or other animal I find up to the sanctuary. We have to call animal control and they do a five day hold and if they don't find the owner or the owner surrenders the animal, then often times they come up to BF, but we always have to follow that protocol.) While we waited for the animal control officer to come pick him up we sat in the driveway. After about 5 minutes of him sitting at the end of the leash he looked over at me and I patted my leg and before I knew it he was sitting in my lap licking my face. Animal control was able to find his family, but they didn't want him anymore, so a few days after finding him, I ran into him in Old Admissions when I was dropping off a "pull dog" for the night. After he was neutered, he came to live at the Garden and we became instant buddies. He was a little crazy in the run, he would try to herd the dogs in the neighboring runs, so I started taking him to lunch in the staff room.

This is Finn after a half hour of fencing in the rain and snow. . . wouldn't you love to have that come running in your door! Another caregiver, Andy, has an Australian Shepherd and he immediately took a liking to Finn. He kept saying that he wanted to adopt him but he wasn't sure if he should or not. Finn had three different applications come in on him but for various reasons they all fell through. When I found out that the third application was a no-go, I told Andy to put in the papers and figure out the details later. The next day he put in his application and within a week, he took Finn home. I still get to see Finn occasionally when Andy brings him to work and he is doing great.

This is Jimmy. He is an amazing dog that I had been taking to lunch with me last fall because he would compulsively run a large circle in the outside part of his run. There was a very distinct track worn in the sand because he did it so much. While I was home for Christmas, he was adopted and went to his forever home. I had no idea there was even an application on him, so I got a phone call on Christmas day saying that Jimmy was leaving to go home and I about fell over. He is doing great in his home and has actually developed the ability to alert his mom when her blood sugar is getting too low. Shortly after he arrived, her husband was out of town and Jimmy's mom let her glucose level get too low and lost consciousness, Jimmy stayed with her pawing at her hands and face and licking her to get her to wake up. If he hadn't been there, she may have been unconscious for hours. On a few occasions since, Jimmy has started exhibiting behaviors that are abnormal for him, licking her hands and whining, and she will check her sugar and sure enough, each time he starts doing these specific things, her sugar has been low. We all knew he was an amazing dog when he was at BF and now he has a great life with people that love him dearly and he is taking good care of them, too.

I came in one morning to find this mess in run 5. About two minutes before this photo was taken, Buster Blue was just sitting at the gate looking all innocent, seemingly trying to say "I really have no idea how this possibly could have happened and I certainly had absolutely nothing to do with it!" But he couldn't contain himself for long and by the time we got back with the camera he was back to further dispersing the contents of what used to be a bed. Everyone has to have a little fun sometimes!

This is Pilot. He is a very cool and incredibly handsome Plott Hound that lived at the Garden for almost a year. He arrived at the Garden shortly after I did and he was repeatedly looked over for adoption because he could be quite strong, stubborn, and rambunctious. But he is also very sweet and loves to have his back end scratched.

He, too, got adopted while I was on vacation, this time in April. There were adopters coming out to meet Buster Blue and when they did the dog intros with their dogs, Buster was a little overwhelmed by their ten-month old puppy that had a boundless supply of energy. They got along fine, but after a while, Buster was jumping up on things to get away from Stains because he was still trying to play with Buster. The people were a little hesitant about Buster because they were worried that, since he had three legs, he might not be able to keep up with Stains energy level and they were really looking for a dog that could help burn off some of that puppy craziness on a daily basis. They saw Pilot while they were at the Garden meeting Buster before the intro and asked if it might be possible to do an intro with Pilot, just to see if he got along better with Stains. The intro was a 45-minute, no holds barred playfest and wrestling match. They didn't stop playing the entire time and everyone knew Pilot was the right dog for them. Lupie took this photo the day he left, since I wasn't there to say good bye in person. They renamed him Steak, apparently they have a thing for "S" names, they also have two ferrets name Split and Splat. He is doing great and he and Stains are always together and up to something. And don't worry about Buster, he got adopted about a month ago to a very nice couple that was looking for a dog that might be able to be a therapy dog. They are hoping that he might be a good candidate for therapy work in VA hospitals and with people that have had to have limbs amputated because he gets along just fine with only three legs.