A Tail of Two Happies

photo credit: 2014 by @arrelaine13

From time to time, we get news from the families of dogs who came through our rescue months—even years—before. These are always the best kinds of Happy Tails, because the glow of having a new pet has faded and the relationships between these people and their animals are steadfast. Not only that, but sometimes the stories are just amazing.

“Dublin” was one of the first dogs ever pulled from a kill shelter by our rescue. He was with us for a year with no adoption interest whatsoever. His name was “Oreo” back then, and he was a great dog from day one. Never a bad habit, never a problem. We felt he was proof that “Black Dog Syndrome” is real, because the only thing going against this beautiful boy was his coat color.

photo credit: 2014 by @arrelaine13

During Oreo’s second winter with us, a woman who trains therapy dogs professionally found his photo on an adoption website in Pennsylvania, where one of our rescue partners had posted him. We made arrangements for him to travel, feeling great about the match and the home he’d be going to. And what a great home it turned out to be!

It wasn’t long before we started getting pictures and updates about his training as a Caring Hearts Therapy Dog. His name had been changed to “Dublin,” and he seemed to be a natural for the job. He was great with kids, a real gentleman.

And the photos! Oh, goodness—they could melt even the hardest of hearts. We saw Dublin with kids and books, kids and snow, kids and toys, kids and other kids, kids and kids and kids--and in every single photo, Dublin looked as though he knew he was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing the job he'd been born to do. The year he'd spent with my rescue getting no attention from adopters or other rescues suddenly made sense. He'd been waiting for this woman, for this home and this job, all along. It was a coming-of-age moment for me as a rescuer, and a very memorable high point for our organization.

Just this week we got a wonderful update from Dublin’s forever mom. “Very exciting news about our boy,” she writes. “Dublin is now a Dauphin County Courthouse therapy dog! He regularly visits the Courthouse in Harrisburg, PA and helps young victims of crime through the legal process. We work with the District Attorney's Office and Victim/Witness Assistance Program. The children and courthouse staff just love him and he is doing so well at this type of therapy work. Not every dog can do this VERY special type of work...he is one special dog!”

We hadn’t even had a chance to respond to this email when we received another one from the forever family of a dog whose experiences here in Virginia had been anything but positive.

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In early 2016, one of our volunteers (@cherielayne) expressed concern about a blue heeler belonging to her neighbor. She said he had no adequate shelter, was short-chained with only a pet taxi to protect him from the frigid Appalachian nights. His water was often frozen, and some days she fed him because the owner never came home.

One night late in January, the dog (Ruger) escaped his chain and began fighting with Cherie’s own dog. In the process of breaking up the fight, Cherie was bitten badly enough to require medical attention. Law enforcement got involved, and since the heeler’s owner had no proof of rabies vaccine, Ruger was impounded at the local shelter in rabies quarantine.

Twenty-two days after entering the shelter, Ruger was cleared by the county veterinarian to be placed for adoption. Cherie went to the shelter and adopted him herself. She’d spend too many days and nights watching him shiver and starve to not intervene for him when she had the chance. She brought him straight to our rescue for quarantine, since exposure to various diseases at the shelter was likely. Once we got him inside, she started to remove his collar, and discovered that it was embedded in his neck by a nearly inch-long metal prong. When the collar came away, so did a large patch of Ruger’s skin and fur.

So here was a dog who’d been impounded at the county shelter for 22 days, possibly led by a leash clipped to that collar, and cleared by a veterinarian who clearly did not examine him before releasing him from rabies quarantine. We promptly contacted county animal control by email (so we would have a record of it) and the next morning took Ruger to our rescue veterinarian for emergency treatment. She placed him under general anesthesia and performed a mild surgical procedure to clean the wound and assess the damage.

Find more details about this incident here and local news coverage of it here.

Ruger was safe the minute Cherie adopted him, but it took him a long time to realize that. He had deep-seated psychological issues from being chained and neglected for so long, plus he was extremely dog-reactive and often provoked fights. Cherie had hoped to take him home after he came out of his fourteen-day intake quarantine provided by our rescue, but soon realized the situation with her own dog would make that virtually impossible. So she visited Ruger here nearly every day, and helped us get him rehabilitated in hopes of finding an adopter.

Finally our rescue partner in New England emailed to say a gentleman had contacted them about Ruger, who was listed on their site as available for adoption. The man had previous experience handling and training difficult dogs and did not seem to mind the extra work that Ruger’s special needs would require. Ruger headed north on transport, and we all held our collective breaths waiting to hear how things went when he arrived.

Then we received a photo that said it all. Ruger would be fine. He was in the loving arms of a person who would care for him no matter what, someone Ruger must have trusted on sight based on the big, goofy smile that dog was wearing. The photo at right was taken moments after Ruger came off the transport van. The chemistry between these two is apparent. And enduring.

Needless to say, when we got an update email saying that things are still going well for Ruger and his new family, it was cause for celebration. This is validation that every step we've taken has been with purpose, that every decision, every risk was ordained and fruitful.

“This [photo] is from last Fall here in VT,” Ruger’s owner writes. “Ruger is such a good boy! He still has a few issues such as fear aggression with some other dogs, but he’s making progress. Like me, he’s a work in progress :) Thank you for saving Ruger and enabling him to live with us in Vermont!”

Some of the dogs we take in come from difficult and traumatic backgrounds. But there’s hope for all of them. We love being able to report such dramatic Happy Tails, and we have more of them than you’d think. We rescue, and rescue big. But we don’t just rescue the dogs. We rescue the people who needed them, too, and in doing so, we rescue ourselves.