Five years ago today, I brought Brooklyn home.
After seeing Georgia coming to life and even willing to come right next to me to get closer to another dog when I was dog-sitting, I decided I’d adopt another dog at a local rescue facility. I didn’t want a puppy, so I asked them if they had dogs over 2 years old, good with dogs and cats, and already housebroken. Somebody led me to Brooklyn’s kennel. She was sleeping with an E-collar on, and I could see all of her bones sticking out. I also noticed 3 servings of her meal untouched in her kennel. They told me they thought she was hit by a car before coming to the rescue. When the lady woke her up and took her out of the kennel, she seemed to come alive. They said she’s good with other animals and perfectly housebroken. I couldn’t take my Georgia to see Brooklyn because Georgia was deathly terrified of everything and anything including going outside. So I trusted them, signed the adoption contract saying I could return her in 3 days if she doesn’t work out with the other animals, and brought her home.
As soon as she laid her eyes on Georgia and 2 cats, I knew she was most definitely not good with other animals. But she kept having the most severe unscoopable diarrhea that would be absorbed by the earth leaving just stains. I had to treat her diarrhea first, and since the rescue has its own veterinary clinic which is free for the pets adopted within 10 days, I took Brooklyn there. They hospitalized her because she hadn’t been eating. Then discharged her saying she ate some puppy chow wet food some flavor!!! No tests run, nothing at all, and she still had diarrhea.
The adoption contract, as it should be, forbade the adopter to give the dog away or adopt her out, and I had to take her back to the rescue if I were not to keep her. I decided I would not take her back to that rescue because she was so thin, having this horrible diarrhea, and obviously not eating, but these people just kept shoving food inside her kennel! Not to mention the fact that they lied about her being good with other animals. I couldn’t return her back there! I contacted a Shiba Inu rescue and told all this, whose lawyer went over the contract to see if there is any loophole. There was none. I had to keep her or return her, OR find another home for her knowingly breaking the contract. I chose the third option.
Brooklyn managed to almost kill Grizzley and attacked Georgia a few times when I felt sorry for her cooped up in the bedroom and tried to leave her out in the livingroom with the leash attached to me. I got bitten by her 6 times in the first 5 months I had her, all 6 times were when I was in her way of getting to another animal. Now I could not find another home for her knowing that she bit. I’d rather want it to be me that she bites than having her bite another person or another animal and possible be killed in a shelter. I had to keep her.
So Brooklyn lived in my bedroom, separated from other dogs and the cat. I consulted behaviorists, trainers, vets, even a pet psychic, which I don’t believe. Nothing worked. Brooklyn loses all senses once she sees another animal. About half of those I consulted told me to put her down. The other half wished me good luck. Not only that, other dogs seem to resent her presence even before she sees them. For instance, Houston never met any dog he didn’t like, until he laid his eyes on her, who didn’t see him yet, and he started growling and trying to get to her with his hackles up and snarling.
In the mean time, I was struggling with the decision. Brooklyn seemed so unhappy. She’s the kind of dog who’d just follow you around and is just happy being in the same room with you or she’s a so-called velcro dog. But having to be separated from the others inside the bedroom, she was plain miserable. I cried almost every night trying to decide if I should put her down or not. I held her and looked into her eyes and wished her to somehow tell me either she’d want to live or die. I just couldn’t put her down. Some people might label it as selfish, but I just couldn’t.
But the help came from the most unlikely source. Georgia. She would run from one end of the livingroom to the other end and jump around with such happiness to see Brooklyn whenever I took Brooklyn out of the room on the leash to taker her outside. Brooklyn would show her aggression, and Georgia would completely freeze, not even making her breathing heard. Then Brooklyn would lose interest. This continued day after day 3 or 4 times a day, and Brooklyn’s reaction went from aggression to being upset to being annoyed to cold shoulder to acknowledgment to err…. happiness! Of course I stuffed her face with something yummy whenever Georgia sprinted towards us, but finally she seemed happy to see Georgia.
When I moved into the house, I finally let them be together, and they loved each other. Brooklyn couldn’t stand to be by herself, and I was frequently heard saying Get a room, will ya? when mutual licking sessions went on and on and on. Brooklyn was finally happy. She groomed Georgia endlessly and she played with Georgia when outside. Brooklyn tore the room apart if Georgia was in the house but not in the same room with her. Brooklyn loved Georgia. Until this last Monday night…, which I’ll blog about in a few days.
Brooklyn is a very sweet girl who just wants to be in the presence of people. Her cinnamon roll looking tail wags like crazy when I come home from work and she screams in joy while her entire butt is moving from side to side. She’s very concerned about how she looks, so she grooms herself just like a cat, and lies down with her front legs crossed. And I know she will protect me when I’m nervous about certain people while walking her at night – more than once, she kept a crackhead and drunks away from us. She loves me so dearly and I love her to death.
Happy gotchaday, Brooklyn!!!!! Love you so much.
As I said in the previous post, I forgot about Georgia’s gotcha day as well. I got her “physically” the day after Grizzley’s birthday even though I signed the adoption papers a few weeks earlier. I think I’ll post Georgia’s arrival story my friends already know because I think this is an appropriate place to post it. So here it goes.
At the end of March 2003, I was looking through special needs dogs on Petfinder, and saw the following description of a Lab/Shep mix called Faith:
Disability description: 1.6.03 to PRESENT…
A few days before Christmas, I was contacted by the Clayton Co. Humane Society in Atlanta, GA. They had received a call about a woman who could not afford to feed her animals anymore and wanted to surrender them to the shelter. Since three of the dogs on the property were labs, I was asked to go out and see if there was something I could do to help the labs as well as get an overall picture of the situation.
When I arrived at the house, I walked to the backyard and saw an old rusted car, trash, and a filthy, unkempt yard. There was feces everywhere in the back and the smell was horrible. There were 2 adults (the mother and father of Faith – female black lab and male German Shepherd) 2 nine month olds (Faith and her brother) and 2 puppies about 6-8 weeks old. They told me the pups were from the black female getting pregnant again – they said that they had given away all the pups but the two they had.
I had originally gone for the black female but once in the backyard I was taken by a poor chocolate lab mix who was known as only “baby girl”. She could not stand totally up due to a deformed front leg. The owner said that she had been born that way and was pretty much treated as an outcast by the rest of the pack. The other dogs did not let her eat any food and she was not allowed into the “house” that the husband had built for the dogs for protection from the weather, the “house” consisted of three pieces of scrap wood and a tarp stretched across the top.
When I tried to approach Faith, she ran – she was scared to death. The husband went to the kitchen and tossed some dog food on the cement stairs (he said they preferred to eat off the steps since it was long and acted like a feeding trough so everyone could get some.) Needless to say, the dogs did not let Faith get near the food. The husband then explained he would throw food on the ground for her because the others would be busy eating their food from the stairs.
I couldn’t stand it, if I didn’t help this girl, she would never make it at a shelter and so I went back the next day with tranquilizers to catch her since sedation was the only way I would be able to get close to her.
After catching her (even though sedated she was still very difficult to catch) we brought her straight to the vet. The first thing was to evaluate the leg, get her shots and a heartworm test. My vet told me her leg would need to be amputated since the bone had begun to grow and had no where to go. She would never be able to stand up straight unless her limb was removed. This poor lab had lived a life of neglect, feeding off the ground and never experiencing human touch. I decided to do whatever it took to help her. The amputation was done and we began trying to work with her.
Unfortunately, the kennel at the vet’s made her even more frightened with all the dogs barking and being caged. Faith does not do well on a leash so she would need to be carried in and out of the kennel to go outside. After coming from a life of living in underbrush in her backyard, the environment she was now in was only putting her further back into her shell.
Then the unspeakable happened, after 3 weeks of boarding, I received a call from the vet telling me she had escaped and they were looking for her now. After searching for 10 days, she was finally caught thanks to the vet’s office staff looking for her on shifts and posting signs on every block. We believe she slipped through the metal poles of the fence and the gate. After that we knew we had to get her out of that environment. The vet’s office had done all that they could, she would not get better being there and an urgent plea for Faith’s foster care was made.
A wonderful angel answered Faith’s plea and she was moved to a home with a garage hoping to eventually bring her inside; however when she becomes frightened or approached by someone she defecates and could not be brought inside. She had gotten better at one point and we started bringing her inside, which she loved! But as soon as she would get scared she’d poop again and my foster mom’s husband put his foot down and said she had to be moved back into the garage. She is very lonely and wants so bad to come inside but because of her problem and a husband wanting her gone yesterday, she has been moved back outside to the garage.
Faith needs someone who can spend quality time with her, someone that has time to work with
her, and of course, love and patience until she feels secure. Faith is truly a good dog but needs someone who is experienced with feral dogs. Faith does not have any aggression whatsoever, only fear. She will try to bite through a leash and so a leash with a chain is a must.
My foster mom has since asked her husband for a divorce and will be moving within the month. Now Faith has nowhere to go. I have no idea what to do. She cannot be kenneled at my vet’s for fear of her escaping again. It was horrible when she got out the first time.
She has come further than she was from the day I rescued her but still needs so much work. She is good with other dogs and also with cats – I truly believe she is very lonely right now and really wants companionship, she’s just afraid of it right now for lack of understanding. Faith is doing well on her three legs. The problem is her fear of people. She allows me to pet her but when she feels threatened or scared she will poop out of fear. We currently have Faith on anti-anxiety medicine to try and help with her fears, amitryptilline 50mg taken twice a day. I truly believe with someone working with her daily this could change.
After reading this with tears falling down, I couldn’t sleep 3 nights in a row, couldn’t do anything but thinking about the poor girl’s scared face in the picture. I knew I couldn’t do anything at the moment because I was living in an apartment with a no-dog clause. But since my lease was expiring at the end of July, if they could just hold on to her, I could adopt her. I sent an email after 3 sleepless nights to see if there is anything I could do. The rescue replied back telling me that they found another foster mom for her and they did not think Faith would get adopted for some time. So frantic search for a house began for me.
After all, I couldn’t get a house in my price range, so I settled for an apartment that allowed dogs and cats. After I signed the lease, I contacted the rescue again to adopt Faith. The rescue was reluctant to let me adopt her because I had not seen how serious her behavior problem was, so they didn’t want Faith to travel such a long distance putting her under enormous stress and end up being returned to them. So, I agreed to fly down to Georgia to meet with the rescue and Faith.
It turned out that Faith was living in a bathroom in her foster because the foster had gotten a lot of dogs, and they surrounded Faith and attacked her when the foster mom was not paying close attention. When I entered the bathroom, I could see this little dark colored thing shaking uncontrollably inside the bathtub under a cardboard. The foster mom explained that she liked to hide so she had put the cardboard at the corner of the tub so that she could feel safe. When I got close to pet her, she let her poop out still shaking, and in her attempt to avoid my hand, she was literally swimming in her poop. It was so painful to see. She was skin and bones, not because foster mom wasn’t taking care of the dog but because she didn’t eat if she’s under stress. They told me she was in an even worse shape when she was kenneled at the vet.
I told the rescue that I definitely wanted to adopt her, and signed the adoption contract and paid the adoption fee. I flew back without making the decision on how to get Faith up to New York with the least amount of stress on her. After talking over and over about transporting Faith to me, flying her commercially was out of the question because she would be scared to death, transport legs was out because it would be too dangerous – she was known to escape out of fear of people. Then we discovered Skyark. We put a request in, but since they had already made a run in this area a couple of days before, and no pilot was volunteering, I ended up just sitting there and waiting for a week and a half not knowing if it’s going to happen or not. I couldn’t take it, my baby is sitting in a bathtub all by herself lying in her own poop. So I decided that I’d fly down and drive her up myself one weekend.
Fortunately, my co-worker volunteered to help me. So in the early morning of Sunday 6/29/2003, my co-worker and I flew down to Georgia, rented an SUV, picked up my baby and drove up to New York. I renamed her Georgia from the song ‘Georgia on my mind’ suggested by a friend of mine since she had been on my mind every single moment from the day I saw her on petfinder. And she’s the love of my life.
Why? Because I did it AGAIN! For the third AND the fourth time!!!!! After forgetting Brandy’s and Foster’s gotcha days, you’d think I’d pay more attention, right? But noooooo. I forgot about the fourteenth birthday of Grizzley AND Georgia’s gotcha day. Yup, I suck.
This one is for Grizzley.
My friend Lefty used to live in a basement apartment 14 years ago and he “had” a cat. She wasn’t really his cat, who strayed into his basement window one day and made herself comfortable. She came and went as she pleased and one day gave birth to a litter of four in Lefty’s apartment. I know, it was a time when I was ignorant of pet overpopulation problem.
I went over to pick a kitty to bring home, and there were one huge off-white colored kitty, big gray kitty, smaller black kitty and a teeny orange kitty. I was struck by the orange one because he was sitting all by himself and looked so sad. I picked the orange one, and Lefty and Nick told me I’d better not because he’s the runt and mostly likely not survive. So I went ahead and picked the gray one as well, and that’s my Grizzley. The orange kitty was my Thanta, who passed 3 years ago. I will blog about him later sometime.
So I took them home one day. Grizzley, as I mentioned before, is a big framed cat and was extremely athletic and exceptionally smart. The only place I forbade them to go was the kitchen counter, so he used to jump up on top of the refrigerator to see what I was doing whenever I was doing something in the kitchen. He was so nosy he usually had to see everything I did. Whenever I cleaned the kitty litter, he would jump up on top of my back, since I would bend my back to scoop it, to keep on eye on what I was doing with his bathroom. Then one day, something happened while I was at work. I don’t know what happened exactly, but it resulted in two femur head surgeries, one on each side, to relieve the pain. Ever since then he stopped being athletic.
Grizzley’s absolute favorite pastime is to make himself comfortable around my neck and shoulder area and knead on my hair – he could do this for hours if left alone. He likes opening doors; cabinet, closet, any door, just to open it. His favorite snack is the soft part of a bagel. He is the only one who bothers me when I eat, trying to pull my hand holding the forkful of food away from my mouth to his every single time. It would be kind of funny actually, arm wrestling with Grizzley for every single bite, if I’m not in a hurry, which is really a rare occurrence. He doesn’t like dogs getting unruly and he always shows them he’s the boss whenever Brandy, Foster or Georgia looks like to him as out of order. Brooklyn, of course, he’s very afraid of, since she almost killed him once, and he vanishes to somewhere whenever I take Brooklyn out of the room.
Despite Grizzley’s latest struggle, no matter it’s cancer or just IBS, he still rules his domain and doesn’t seem to be wiling to lower the level of his grumpiness or pushy behavior. He turned fourteen last Saturday, and I’m cautiously optimistic that he still have a few more years left in him. Please say a little prayer for him on account of his belated birthday.
Happy Birthday, Griz! Love ya!
But I did. I failed to consult my organizer to check if there’s any important shit I was supposed to be reminded of. On May 20th of 2005, I started suffering from a severe chronic pain on my backside; the kind of pain that you get used to and you even miss it when you don’t suffer from it and you wish you never have to part from the pain as long as you live. The pain named Foster. Yes, 5/20 was Foster’s Gotcha day. I flew down to Newport News airport, VA, rented an SUV, drove to Baja-Ma‘s house to pick him up, and drove back up to NY. And Foster has been the royal pain in my fat ass ever since.
Photo taken by PrincessGinger
Foster was abandoned by his owners – bastards! – who moved out and left him in the yard to fend for himself when he was only about 2 months old. A kind man noticed a poor skinny pup without food or water, so he took him, named him Foster, and contacted his friend PrincessGinger. She fostered him for about 6 months while trying to adopt him out to a good home without success. Having born with the fate of a big black dog, people who showed any interest in him were people who wanted to leave him outside as a guard dog and such. Then PrincessGinger’s landlord wanted Foster out. I agreed to take over the search for the right family but I couldn’t go get him myself and PrincessGinger couldn’t get him to me either so Foster had to be boarded. Then Baja-Ma who lives at about halfway point between me and PrincessGinger stepped in to foster him. So one day PrincessGinger and her BF drove Foster up and dropped him off at Baja-Ma’s house.
Photo taken by PrincessGinger
Unfortunately, Baja-Ma’s resident Beagle Jade was not keen on having to share her humans and didn’t like her domain invaded by a rambunctious puppy full of energy and it was disrupting an otherwise peaceful home – read people lost sleep. I rushed to make plans to go get him and 10 days later, I met Baja-Ma at her house, who, by the way, didn’t look too happy to see me at all and didn’t feel the need to fake happiness either – she later gave me a lame excuse like I woke her up or something, yeah, uh huh. I loaded Foster up and headed home.
On our way home, we stopped at G’s house in Onancock, VA. Now People! The stress is on the second syllable, and there are TWO n’s in Onancock! DO NOT DROP THE SECOND N!!! I knew G through Petfinder message board, and she so desperately wanted to help me by doing some of the driving so that I didn’t have to drive too much, in which case I would have completely missed the pleasure of meeting Baja-Ma and seeing her jump up and down with happiness for finally getting to meet me. But G’s location made it difficult for her to help me, so I stopped by for lunch and had a very nice visit with G, who by the way looked very happy to see me unlike certain somebody I mentioned earlier. Also her Golden Retriever named Rookie helped tire out Foster for the long drive ahead.
When we arrived home, Foster must have thought he died and went to hell and Grizzley was the Satan. Foster saw Grizzley lying under the coffee table, and lowered his head to investigate the kitty cat. Grizzley, not having any of that, and why should he in his age, hissed and air-whacked him without even getting up. The scene that followed is something you would have seen in a cartoon where Foster immediately tried to turn and haul ass but getting zero traction on the hardwood floor, he ran for his life at the exact same spot for a few seconds before he took off out of the living room and hurried into his crate, and didn’t come out for the rest of the evening.
I started the search for Foster’s forever home, and abandoned the effort in a couple of months or so later. He was cute. He was a pain. He was PAINFULLY cute. He was adorable. He was a pain. He was PAINFULLY adorable. More than anything, he was a good natured, I-love-everybody, OMG-life-is-great happy-go-lucky puppy who constantly made me laugh everyday. He was a pain. I was in love. He was a pain. I absolutely loved him and couldn’t let him go.
I would have decided to keep him sooner if I didn’t feel that Foster, the only “normal” and adoptable dog at home, could find a much better family who could take care of him much better than I ever could. But a not very trusting misanthrope I am, I convinced myself that he’s a pain enough to be called a “special case”. I still feel somewhat guilty about it sometimes for having kept him for selfish reasons. Kind people have told me I have to be selfish some time. Well, I just hope Foster feels the same way.
Happy belated gotcha day, Foster! …pain in the ass…
Last Saturday was a day that called for celebration, and I completely forgot even though I marked my organizer. That’s what happens when you carry an organizer to write shit down but there is nothing to remind you to consult the organizer.
Last Saturday was Brandy’s gotcha day. I first laid eyes on Brandy 4 years ago on 5/10 around 2 or 3am. I was involved in a transport of dogs in death row from a shelter in Indiana to NE area where the rescues and adopters were waiting. We started the transport early in the morning the day before, but the schedule delayed repeatedly by unforeseen problems from the very beginning: the first leg’s car breaking down, the leg right before me dropping a wrong dog off, not to mention the last leg, me, getting totally lost finding the meeting place in the middle of the night. Oh and did I mention one of the dogs got loose while hand-off? Thankfully we got her back after running around for about half an hour or so – we were extremely lucky. Because a wrong dog was dropped off and because the one who ran that leg basically drove all day from Ohio to New York, I had to go back to the border of NJ and PA to exchange the dogs. That was when I first met Brandy. She was the wrong dog, meaning that she was one of the two that I pulled to foster and find homes for. I wasn’t looking for another dog myself, you see.
Within a week, the other dog I pulled, Bella, already had a great family who wanted to adopt her and was adopted in 2 weeks. However, nobody was interested in Brandy. She was an odd looking puppy with disproportionately short legs and a tail which looked like it belonged to another dog that somebody jokingly attached to her body somehow. She was one of those all too common Shepherd mix, nothing but a dime a dozen mutt, a strange looking one at that. I wasn’t in a hurry to adopt her out though since she seemed to be “throwing up” a whole lot, and I wanted to find out what’s wrong with her and get it taken care of first.
After three visits to the vet, we found out that Brandy has congenital megaesophagus. Her esophagus has zero motility and whatever goes into her mouth just sits in her esophagus and comes back out when she lowers her head, jumps down from sofa or even just lying down. She wasn’t throwing up, she was regurgitating her food. There’s no treatment but an operation, the failure of which results in a much worse condition than before and the success rate too low to consider. The vet told me that she needed to be held upright to get her body perpendicular to the ground so that the gravity pulls the food down to her stomach every time she eats or drinks.
I stopped my effort to adopt her out and decided to keep her. I gave myself an excuse that nobody would adopt her anyway and even if somebody did, they’d get sick of her ruining the couch or carpet with her regurgitation and she’d be dumped again. But the truth is that I was already so deeply in love with Brandy. She’s the embodiment of gratefulness, appreciation and loyalty. I could always feel it looking into her eyes looking back at me with such devotion.
Sometime last week, I was talking to my friend who used to pet-sit for me and also lived in my livingroom for a month to help me take care of Brandy when I had my shoulder surgery. It was about Brandy’s current problem having soft stool, and I said, “It’s so fucking unfair! She’s the most loyal, most grateful one and she has to suffer so damn much.” And his reply drove me to tears. “Yeah, I know. She would die for you in a heartbeat.”
Yes, I know she would.
Happy belated gotcha day, Brandy! I suck moose’ ass for forgetting.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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