On April 14th, 2011, we rescued a Yellow Lab from Washington County who came in as a stray and weighed 142lbs. Yes, Butters, as he was named, wasn’t a dog, he was a house! He had probably lived outside in a yard and free fed…all day long. THE POOR GUY! Butters could hardly stay on his feet and had to lay down just to eat. Obviously, no one was going to adopt this giant dog who could hardly move. We wanted to fix that for him!

To top it all off, Butters was missing large patches of hair and was greasy and smelly. It took three of us just to load him up in the car. He was actually slippery!

Here’s a top view of some of his patches of missing fur.  We had blood work done and Dr Mark checked his vital organ function. Everything looked good, so his diet began!

At the ranch, Butters wanted desperately to play with the other dogs, but he had to lay down and wrestle with them on the ground.

There’s not much movement going on here…

This is a video of Butters about half way through his diet when he realized he could actually run!

And a mere four months after we started his diet and fed him measured portions of food and vegetables that Shannon and Bill were vigilant about sticking to, Butters weighed in today at 89lbs! He has lost 53lbs! He has basically lost another large sized dog worth of weight! All of his fur has grown back in and his skin cleared up from eating a good quality diet.

He’s a dog again! At approximately three years old, Butters can run again!

Butters is a happy boy! He may not be super bright, but he’s super sweet…

And he can jump into the car by himself now. Look at his smile!

So lets see that again. Here’s a pic of Butters today, sporting a waistline,

And here’s Butters four months ago!

Wow! What a champ! And another miracle…

Poor little Marlena. She’s in a lot of pain today but she’s been laying in the sun, hopped up on pain meds. Yesterday Marlena had an FHO surgery to repair her mangled hip. Everyone at the clinic adored her, and no surprise! Marlena is the sweetest girl with the best personality, but she could never use her right rear leg. She ran as fast as she could on three legs, but it just isn’t quite the same when you want to play with all your doggie friends. In a few weeks, Marlena will be able to use all four legs without pain for the first time in her short year of life. Hurray! We’re so glad to be able to do that for her!

Here she is sunning in the yard. Her spirits are good and she still wags her tail the minute you talk to her. Sweet girl…

First, Reuben may be blind, but he is VERY brave. He’s 4 lbs of utterly fearless monkey! He climbs into the toy box and up on to the ottoman, then climbs on to the chair and walks across to the arm of the chair and sits, just as if he’s a little Egyptian statue. He does this every day! I know he knows how high he’s climbed because he hangs his head over the edge as if to verify that he’s definitely up in the air…

He has also decided there are specific toys he likes to play with. He climbs up in the toy box and then digs down to the bottom just to pick out the ones he wants (see pic below). Once he has a toy that suits his taste, he throws it around and shakes it as hard as he can. Some traits are just consistent in puppies no matter what. )

When we go outside to go potty, he bounces through the grass just like a jack rabbit. He rolls in the grass and sun bathes, and sniffs, and sniffs and sniffs. When I call him, he runs back to my legs and spins in circles crashing into my legs over and over. He thinks it’s fun!

Don’t let this super mellow pose fool you. It took awhile to get him to stop moving long enough to take this pic!

Thanks to everyone who came out to volunteer or bring your dog to our annual dog wash fundraiser. It was a great day!

We washed 76 dogs. And our terrific volunteer vet techs trimmed toenails on even more!

We got Hakuna back out of the shelter…again…and he needed a bath and a nail trim!

Benny and Kristen’s reunion!

Benny gets a bath

Benny, shiny new penny!

Sasha got the royal treatment. She’s been coming to our dog washes since the beginning and she’s seventeen years old!

The Scrub Tub!Zarynn grew up!

This is Reuben.

Reuben is about 12-14 weeks old and he’s a cute little Chihuahua, almost positively mixed with a Double Dapple Doxie. Wanna know how we know? Cuz he’s BLIND! Only a rotten, greedy, selfish breeder would be trying to breed a blue eyed Chihuahua knowing they’re going to breed blind or deaf (and sometimes blind AND deaf) puppies. Aaaaarrrrgghhh!!!

Reuben is playful and sweet, but he’ll need to live in a home that can keep him safe because he has absolutely no idea how to protect himself. Does it slow him down?? No way! If you give Reuben a toy, he’ll throw it up in the air and pounce…next to it. Then he’ll pounce again…on the other side of it (where in the hell did that toy go?) Then he’ll pounce again…and he’s got it…and he’s off! SO CUTE!

He loves to lay on his back and cradle in your arms. Here’s his adorable little toes while snoozing at the dog wash event yesterday…

On December 30, 2010, we rescued an emaciated 27lb, terrified feral dog who was found running scared in Gaston. Since he was only about a year old and in obvious terrible condition, we assumed he must have been running for most of his life, living on scraps of food he could find and drinking from whatever water was available. In addition to being skeletal, his tail was matted to the bone and his color was an unusual blond, that made it difficult to tell whether he was a Border Collie, or some other breed. I wondered whether his coloring might have been bleached out from being malnourished and outdoors for so long.

We named him Phoenix. As a reminder, here are a few of his first pics with Indigo Rescue.

Here’s Phoenix on one of his first walks in early February, 2011. He was sooooo scared!

Here’s Phoenix today. Just under six months later, you can hardly recognize him! He’s still petrified to leave the house, he tucks his tail between his legs when he isn’t home, and he hates walking on a leash or going in the car…but he sure loves running and playing with the other dogs!

Now lets see that back to back. Can you believe it!? Phoenix has truly lived up to his name!

Here’s Phoenix giving me one of his goofy smiles…

Hello everyone,

I am writing today to ask for your support. As we all know, our economy is hurting. It seems there is no one who has not been affected adversely somehow by our country’s financial woes. Indigo Rescue is no exception. Donations are way down. Adoptions are slow. Foster homes are harder and harder to find, but the county shelters continue to call and ask us for our help in taking dogs. We have partnerships with three county shelters and we really want to help them save lives! Remember, our commitment is to take the dogs when they are injured (because the counties don’t have funding to pay for their vet care), sick, terrified, or just over full.

Along with the changing economy, two years ago, Nike terminated their dollar Volunteer Matching program, and a giant chunk of our annual income disappeared with it. We have not been able to recover from that financial loss and it scares us.

In short, while we continue to grow our business at the ranch and save as many shelter animals as possible, we are worrying about running out of funds to continue to do our work.

Now comes the hard part. I wish, more than any of you could possibly imagine, that we could do our work without asking for money, but that just isn’t possible so I’d like you to consider whether you might be able to make a $10 monthly contribution to Indigo Rescue via Paypal. Once per month, you would be charged just $10 to your account. Over an entire year, that would be a fully tax deductible $120. Please think about it. If even 50 people could make this commitment, it would bring us $6000 of annual income we desperately need. Ask your animal loving friends if they can help us by making the same donation. Please feel free to post on Facebook or Twitter, or anywhere else you think it might get us the support we need.

If you think you can spare $10 per month to help us continue doing our much needed rescue work, please sign up for a monthly contribution today. It would mean the world to us, and will definitely mean the difference in how much we can do to help animals. Go to: http://indigorescue.org/?page_id=18

Thank you all so much for your support!!

--
Heather Hines
Director Indigo Rescue

never never never give up

This little girl is an example of a dog who has come a long way and now she desperately needs a foster home! This little girl is named “Chewy” (and yes, we will definitely change that name). As you can see she’s a pretty little Pitty girl… but she didn’t always look this good…

So now, lets take a look at her past. Chewy came to the Columbia County shelter with a litter of puppies. She was from a terrible, neglectful situation. The staff at the shelter took one look at this sweet, tragic little girl and knew they had to help her. And so they did. Chewy had both Demodex (non-infectious mange) AND ring worm (an infectious fungus)! She had almost no hair…

Still, this stoic little angel remained happy and earnest while they treated her with special shampoo, and medications, and injections…Here’s a picture from a week after they got her.

The picture at the beginning of this post was taken a mere 45 days after Chewy came to the shelter in such terrible condition. The rest of the story is the typical story we hear every day about Pit bulls. There are too many of them, and because of the community stigma, there are not enough people willing to give them a chance. This little girl needs a foster home and of course, a new, adoptive home, where she can be loved and cared for the way she should have been to begin with!

Please help us find a great home for a great girl.

Thank you!

My kitty Jezebel likes to wrap herself up in a sheer curtain. She drags the curtain up on the bed with her every day and takes a nap while wrapped in the sheer fabric. It’s just soooo cute, I had to share.

Okay, it isn’t really a walk, per se, but we pull Phoenix along and keep encouraging him while he has the brakes on and drags his feet the whole way. We really don’t get very far before it wears the humans out, but on the way back he will actually walk a few steps on his own.

Claudia bought Phoenix a Thundershirt, which is something like a Tellington Touch “wrap”, intended to be calming to anxious or fearful animals. He wears the Thundershirt and each day we work with him to build his confidence. This is still one very scared dog, but he is gaining weight (he’s now up to 50lbs from 27lbs!) and his coat is finally a soft white and gold.

It’s such a drag…  (I couldn’t resist) ; 0 )