We decided to name the little broken Miniature Pinscher, or Dachshund/Chihuahua or whatever he is, Trooper. Cuz that’s definitely what he is! This little guy truly doesn’t ever feel sorry for himself! He just marches on as if he doesn’t have a badly broken leg and a HUGE cast! Here he is today with his new cast, complete with a cute little bandaid Perry made for him : o )

I deliberated over whether it was a good idea to share some of my personal loss on the blog, but in the spirit of sharing what it’s like to live the life of animal rescue, it seemed appropriate to share more than just the actual Indigo Rescue work.

The following is an obituary of sorts. I wrote it as part of my own healing and to help me find closure:

I lost my 20 year old kitty, Schautzie on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Schautzie was my first rescue following moving to Oregon. He and an identical sibling who another neighbor adopted, were abandoned in the apartment complex I was living in. We estimated they were six months old.

He was such a good natured kitty. He never hissed or grumbled at any of the other cats, just did his own thing and sorta rolled with the punches…and there were a lot of those. After all, the cats who live with me see a lot of canine and feline traffic, and that can be really hard on a cat.

When I bought my first home, Schautzie was in heaven because he could go outside. I installed Cat fencing to keep everyone in my backyard and safe, but Schautzie enjoyed his independence and wanted to be out in front of my house in his own kingdom, and he never did wander past my driveway, so I allowed it. He was the only one I allowed to go out the front door, rather than the back.

Over the past few years, the only age related issue Schautzie developed was some arthritis in his rear legs. He would limp a little, but never, ever missed a meal. He loved to eat! I had started having his long hair shaved for the summer, because he didn’t do much grooming any longer and his hair would get mattes.

On Saturday, when I returned from our tag sale, Schautzie was hiding in a cat house (like a dogloo) and cried out for me. I found him and he was already failing to the point where I knew he was in grave condition. He had been fine and wandering around the yard two days before, so the failing part happened really quickly.

I warmed him up with heat lamps and a heating pad, gave him sub q fluids (under the skin), gave him some water with colloidal silver (anti-viral) orally to wet his throat, gave him pain meds, Rescue Remedy and antibiotics, and hoped for the best.

I could tell he was feeling better as he warmed up because he was stretching his arms out and responsive to all of the things I did for him, but he was so weak, I knew he just needed to rest. I asked him not to purr (which he did constantly) because it took too much energy.

I spoke with Dr Mark and we agreed there was nothing more I could do for him. I checked on him every hour so I could monitor his temperature and at 1:45am when I checked on him, he seemed restless and was moving around, but I quickly realized he was dying. I sat with him and reassured him and he died quietly within the next two minutes. He did not appear to be suffering at all.

The first picture is Schautzie from about 1998. The second was taken in 2007 (Schautzie loved to sunbathe). The last picture  is from August of this year. You can’t miss those beautiful eyes. Schautzie was with me for 19.5 years of my life. It’s a long, long time. The entire time I have lived in Oregon. My life has changed a lot over those years and Schautzie was a constant. I will miss his sweet face and bright green eyes, but mostly, his sweet demeanor…

I picked up the mail today, and there was a donation from someone who learned about us in the Oregonian. The envelope was hand written with a postmark from Pacific City. There was a cashiers check for $1000 enclosed, along with a hand written note, below

THANK YOU!:

This is the hardest part of what we do. Sometimes a dog (or cat) we’ve adopted out, gets returned. Sometimes it’s for really ridiculous reasons, the type we work so hard to prevent with our adoption process… and trying to make compatible matches.

Other times, the dogs really turn out not to be a good match for the home. Try as we might, we just can’t seem to find that crystal ball…

So this little girl, Shasta, is coming back. Shasta is a young (very puppy acting) American Eskimo mix, probably with Pomeranian. She loves other dogs, but is a little apprehensive about new people at first, and can be very barky (consistent with her breed). She really needs to go to a home with another dog, but more important, SHE NEEDS A NEW FOSTER HOME!

Luckily, we had a foster step up for our little Rotti mix, who turns out to be a small Rottweiler (no mix). The short little ears were actually only one ear, and that ear had scarred down with tissue from having had a hematoma in her ear flap that was never drained and repaired. Eventually, the ear suffers permanent damage that is otherwise referred to as “cauliflower ear”.

Luckily, Raven, as her rescuer named her, is really happy to be in a home again! She has her bad skin, and a little kennel cough, and we had to do a urinalysis today because she has some funky urine, but hopefully that’s a urinary tract infection we can get under control with antibiotics.

We are still looking for a foster home for the little scared Minature Pinscher, and for Jada, our super happy, super active Lab/Boxer mix. Help!

Elijah had his second spinal tap today. If you haven’t been following his story, the lab lost Elijah’s spinal fluid sample. We couldn’t believe it. The poor guy! So he had to go back under anesthetic and have it done again. The good news it that he doesn’t seem any worse for wear today.

So now we wait to find out what the sample will tell us. Hopefully we’ll have an update later this week.

This weekend was our big Tag/Yard Sale. Wow! The weather was supposed to be rainy in varying degrees, with high winds, but instead, it was actually pretty nice. Not 72 degrees like the day before the sale started, but better than the forecast!

We had people chomping at the bit on Friday morning before we opened, and a steady stream of people from that minute forward. By the end of Friday, we’d probably already sold 1/4 of our merchandise! Saturday was chillier weather but we still had a steady stream of visitors and sold another big chunk of stuff. By Sunday, it was raining on and off and we had the occasional gusts of wind blowing through, but people still showed up to shop!

By the end of the sale we had raised just under $2000, and we figure we have another $500 worth of stuff we’re going to try to sell on Craigslist. Whoo hoo! That was a really good fundraiser for a cool October weekend and we owe it all to you, our donors, our shoppers, the people who loaned us tables, and a few diehard volunteers:

Huge THANK YOU’s go to: Diane and Darrell, Mary Lou, Kristen, Jan, Susan, Jaye and Meagan. Some of us donated, and then bought each others stuff. You know what they say about one mans junk…

Some time ago I forbade our volunteers from saying any of the silly designer mutt names. Instead, I asked them to refer to these dogs as exactly what they are. Mixed breed dogs (aka MUTTS!)

Examples:

Labradoodle = A Labrador Retriever and a Poodle

Puggle = A Pug and a Beagle

By describing them as exactly what they are, nothing more than a mixed breed dog with a silly, made-up name, we can help put it all back into perspective.

For nothing more than the opportunity to say a silly breed name like ChiWeenie (Chihuahua/Dachshund), people will spend upward of $1000! REALLY?!

You spent all that money on a MUTT! Don’t you feel silly? You contributed to a world that is already so overpopulated with dogs and cats that millions are euthanized every year in shelters for nothing more than lack of homes (or homes that will keep them for their entire lives).

Breeding and selling designer mutts is nothing more than greedy, and purchasing designer mutts is the epitomy of frivolous behavior. If we all stop buying designer mutts, the greedy people will stop breeding them. Another lesson in basic math.

People often drop their mutts off at the county shelters and boast that their dog is a purebred Pompoo, and they have papers from the breeder to prove it. Lets say it again out loud: You mix Pomeranian with Poodle, guess what? You have a MUTT!

And don’t believe them when they tell you they mixed the breeds together so you could have the temperament of a Labrador with the non-shedding coat of a Poodle, because guess what? You have exactly a 50/50 chance you will get a dog with the temperament of a Poodle and the shedding coat of a Labrador Retriever!

Oh, and stop making the argument you have to buy a puppy so you can train it to be how you want it. Most traits are inherent in dogs by breed or genetics. You can have it from the minute it’s born and you will still not be able to change certain traits.

ADOPT a rescued pet instead! This is Stanley, a purebred Dachshund who is available for adoption through Indigo Rescue, and has been for over a year…

Remember Fresno? He was the little Shepherd/Sheltie mix who was shot and hit by a car, then laid in a ditch for days while people thought he was dead,  in Fresno, California, and we flew him to Oregon because no one in California could pony-up the money to pay for his surgery.

We fundraised for quite a while to take care of that little guy, but he had surgery and recovered beautifully.

If you aren’t familiar, click here to see his original rescue story and pics

Here’s an update and a few pics from Fresno’s dad. SO sweet!

Hi there!

Fresno is doing great!  He doesn’t do a lot of playing with other dogs (he’s very selective about his playmates), but that’s the way it’s been from the beginning.

He hangs out a lot with Willie, our next-door neighbor’s dog (a golden lab), but only gets playful when I join the fun.  People on the other hand, he can’t get enough of.  He’s really good with our 5 1/2 month-old daughter, Arabella.

He’s a total couch-dog and loves curl up on the couch and sleep or snuggle.  Our daughter is absolutely fascinated by him too.  She wants to pet him all the time (though she’s still working on fine motor-skills, so it’s more like grabbing fistfuls of his fur).  He doesn’t seem to mind it much.  He’ll just get up and flop to a different part of the couch if she gets too intense.

I’ve got a few pictures, some as old as a couple years ago, at least one as recent as last week (the one of him and our daughter).  The one of him wearing the Santa-hat was last December, and the one of him standing on the deck in the snow was two years ago just before all the snow really came down.

We’ve taken him camping with us the last couple years (we usually do July 4th weekend) and the one included is from his first trip in 2008.  He had a blast!

We were camped out right next to a stream (somewhat visible in the background), and as expected at first, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the water (we had to cross the stream to get to our camp site).

I decided to clean myself up in the deep part of the stream one morning (I was up to my neck), but he got all upset and started whimpering and picking his feet up (like he wanted to follow but didn’t know how).

Within a minute, he jumped right in and came swimming after me.  He didn’t even stop there.  He swam two full circles around me and climbed back up on the stream shore.  Everybody in our group were standing there, mouths agape at the spectacle.  Nobody had seen that one coming!

Since then, he has no problems with water (other than when he gets a bath).  Last year (2009), we went back to the same stream and he went straight for the water (the shallow part anyway) and raced Bella to the camp site.

Unfortunately, I was lugging all our gear at the time and couldn’t get a picture of it.  Would have been a great shot of the two of them tearing down the stream, splashing water everywhere like a couple of rain-soaked kids, stomping in puddles!

This little guy is at the shelter and they are really full right now so we really need to work on getting him into a foster home. Evidently he is very sensitive and although we are told he is super sweet once he knows someone, he will re-direct and bite if he is startled. I honestly believe this is a manageable trait as long as he is in the right situation. Is anyone up for a project?

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Min Pin’s, Susan thinks our little broken puppy may be a Chihuahua, mixed with Dachshund. Anything is possible! We still aren’t able to get comments on our blog so if you have name suggestions, go ahead and email them to us at: info@indigorescue.org

Thanks!