The story is long and sordid, but suffice to say that Jada is back and needs a new foster. She was returned by her recent adopters, but not because of anything she did. There was an unexpected illness in their family. We have Jada in a temporary foster home, but they don’t have a yard and Jada needs a lot of exercise. She is great with other dogs, but she is only 1.5 years old and she is a Lab/Boxer mix so she has LOTS of energy. Jada does best with structure and either running, or spending a lot of time in daycare or at a dog park. She can be crated, but not for the usual ten hour work day because her busy brain can’t take that long period of time.

Help!

Just got off the phone with Dr. Skinner, who had called to go over the results found in Elijah Blu’s spinal fluid. Unfortunately, instead, he got the not-so-easy job of telling me the lab had lost Elijah Blu’s spinal fluid sample. NO!!! That poor little guy has to go back in for a second spinal tap. I asked if he could wait a week or so, just to recover from the last time he went under anesthetic, so he is scheduled for a week from this Monday. It will be two days to get the lab work back (and it better be hand delivered this time!), and we’ll finally have an idea what we’re dealing with. Oy.

So last night I let the dogs out for a last pee around 10pm. I was looking forward to going to bed early because I hadn’t been getting much sleep with the two puppies. The dogs were outside for less than ten minutes.

I opened the door and everyone came in as expected, except for little Zamora, a cute little fluffy black and tan mixed small dog. I wasn’t too alarmed initially because sometimes Zamora likes to hang back and trail in last, after she’s had a few more romps around the yard.

After a few minutes, I opened the door and called for her, but she was nowhere in sight. I grabbed my flashlight and went out in the yard and started poking around. This wouldn’t be too big of deal, except that my yard is .5 acre with lots of trees and shrubs, and it was pitch black and really cold!!

I called my friend Diane while I walked around seaching the yard with my flashlight and told her I was worried that Zamora hadn’t come in with the other dogs because she almost never wants to be away from Maybelle. I stood still and listened to see if she was moving around, but heard nothing.

After more than half an hour of poking around my yard with the flashlight and two other dogs, I started walking the fence line. I couldn’t believe there was any area she could get through!

I eventually wound up behind my shed and realized there was a small gap along the bottom of the chain link where the earth had eroded away and at least my boot could fit through. But could Zamora fit through?

By now I was convinced she was not anywhere in the yard, so she had to have somehow gotten out. PANIC! It was nearly an hour since I had let the dogs back in and realized she had disappeared. This is a little black dog missing in the pitch black and cold, late on a Saturday night!

I quickly jumped in the car and drove to the neighborhood behind mine so I could see if maybe she was stuck in the yard of the house behind mine. I realized as soon as I got there that they have a huge gap at the bottom of their gate, and she could have easily gotten through there and kept going…it was now 11:30pm. No!!

I drove around and around the neighborhood looking for her until just before midnight, and all the while my friend Diane had stayed on the phone with me.

Diane finally convinced me to go home and try to get some sleep so I could get up early and start searching again. I felt sick with worry, but agreed I couldn’t do anything more in the dark.

I went ahead and called the sheriffs department and reported Zamora as a lost dog just in case they got a call from someone about a found dog (they have access to the kennels at the county shelter for after hours stray dog drop-offs).

I clung to the hope that I would come home and somehow find her in the yard waiting for me, but unfortunately, she was still nowhere in sight. It was a very surreal experience. You can’t believe they could really be gone so you keep checking, but they definitely aren’t there and your heart sinks every time. Still, I went to bed and kept the light on the porch on just in case she somehow made her way back.

I finally slept for about three hours, then got up at 5am so I could make flyers. I went through my backyard in the dark again, then made a LOST DOG flyer with a picture of Zamora, and drove around in the dark hanging them on posts and at every place where you can enter or exit the neighborhoods.

My hope was that as soon as people were up and leaving home, they’d see my flyer and hopefully have seen Zamora, too. I hung flyers in my neighborhood, too, just in case she’d figured out how to get back into my yard from someone’s backyard in the other neighborhood.

By a little after 7am, at sun-up I was done. I took one more slow drive around the two neighborhoods and then went home to wait and see if someone would call.

At 7:40am I got home, and on auto-pilot I walked back to check my yard one more time. I opened the door, and what do you think? There was Zamora walking toward me with a sheepish “Am I in trouble?” look. I looked back at her in disbelief. Seriously?! Were you hiding in the yard the entire night, or did you get out and come back?

It was freaking 34 degrees outside and she’d been gone nearly ten hours! I reminded myself that I had told myself during the numerous loops I’d made around the neighborhood looking for her, that as frustrated as I was, if I found her alive I would be so grateful that I wouldn’t be mad at her.

I scooped her up and she gave me a few chilly licks. Poor little girl was cold! Brrrrrr. I have NO idea what in the hell was going through her little head when she pulled that prank, but she definitely lost her off-leash-in-the-yard rights, at least at night. I also pulled a railroad tie and three cinder blocks over and blocked the weak area at the bottom of my fence. I definitely rained on her parade!

Sigh…I got back in the car and drove around pulling down all of my flyers and walked around in a bit of a coma today, but I guess all’s well that ends well…little angel.

Wanna come up with a name for our little broken Min Pin? We’re entertaining any suggestions! He’s approximately 12 weeks old, super energetic, and cute, cute, cute! Yes, he’s a bit needy and somewhat obsessive about where you are at every minute of every day (and don’t try sneaking off while he’s dozed off for just a second, cuz he ain’t buyin’ it), but he makes up for his neurosis with super endearing, affectionate qualities.

Click here to see Min Pin’s youTube video

So again, both the radius and ulna are broken in one front leg. Judging by the location and the way they are broken, our guess is that someone stepped on him, which isn’t really hard to imagine since he is so needy that he runs directly under your feet while you are walking (thus causing me to quickly re-train myself to shuffle my feet around the house). Whomever stepped on him probably did the math and figured the vet bill would be much more than the cost of a new puppy, so off to the shelter he went (rotten SOB’s!) Poor little guy! He remains a trooper and has an incredible agility considering the weight of his casted front limb, which is half again the size of his entire body! He hops around on all three, and happily makes friends with all of the dogs (and cats) who come around to visit.

Again, name ideas anyone?

To-date, we’re still waiting to hear back from Dr Skinner, the veterinary neurologist, with the results from EB’s spinal fluid. The myelogram showed him that whatever is going on with Elijah Blu is not a surgical issue, meaning he does not have a compressed or ruptured disc injury. What he does have going on is still unclear. The spinal fluid will show them whether there is some kind of inflammatory process going on, which is likely, since the best he has ever acted or responded was to a corticosteroid called Dexamethasone which acts to reduce inflammation. Unfortunately, it is not something they can safely prescribe long term for Elijah Blu.

In the meantime, here is a pic of Elijah Blu following his recent hair cut. He’s still cute as a button!

I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to catch up on what’s going on. Things got a bit crazy following the story in the Oregonian. Sadly, despite the fact that it was clearly stated that we only take county shelter dogs, we got a lot of calls and emails from people wanting to give up their pets. Susan actually took a call from someone who wanted us to re-home their ten year old Yellow Lab because “We have kids now and she chews up their toys and we have to keep her in the laundry room, and we’re just tired of her.” They also said they had already “Gotten rid of” their other dog.

Sigh…even after twenty-some years dealing with the rescue world, it continues to floor me how many people somehow end up with pets they can’t figure out how to commit to for the 12-18 yrs of their lives. Seriously, I shudder to imagine what this world would be like if it weren’t considered immoral to give away ones children if they are causing a cramp in your lifestyle. With regard to the people who give away their pets, I really wish they just wouldn’t bother getting one to begin with. It would save us a lot of trouble, and the pets a lot of fear and readjustment, and that’s assuming they are lucky enough to find a new home.

I actually intended to update everyone on the kitties we had adopted out ten years ago and recently learned that they were going to be euthanized because they weren’t getting along well and some of them were not using the litter box consistenly. This past Thursday was the scheduled D-Day (including a short reprieve we had been granted), and we learned on Wednesday that the woman had found someone to adopt two of the cats and convinced the husband to try it with just the other two. Fingers crossed! One of our long time volunteer fosters had also piped up and said she might be able to take a couple of the cats, but the former option is much more practical. Interestingly enough, when we explained that there was no magic island we could just take the cats to, they figured out a solution.

Here are some pics of me with the two puppies. The little six week old “Mini-Aussie/Queensland Terrier mix” has since gone to a new foster home, and I’m taking care of the little broken Min Pin puppy. As you can see, they’re helping me do email…okay, not really helping, per se. One-handed typing takes much, much longer to do.

The little bugger likes pants…and shoe laces!

Yes, tomorrow OCU at Indigo Ranch will be featured on the front page of the Oregonian’s Living Section! Hopefully lots of people who don’t otherwise have much reason to venture out of the Portland metro area, will learn about our ranch and hit the highway so they can check it out!. I was up today with Trish so she could take some new pics for the website while the salmon are running. It’s amazing! It happens every October for about a week, and luckily, they’re spawning right now! We climbed down the bank of the Nehalem behind our barn and stood about five feet away from the salmon while they pushed and flopped trying to make their way up stream. There were five of them in one spot today and Trish got some great pics and video that she’ll post later tonight. Awesome!

Click here to watch salmon running youTube video.
Click here to view photos of salmon & Indigo Ranch (same as slideshow below)

Meantime, I picked up the little broken 12 week old Min Pin from the shelter today. Turns out it wasn’t both legs that were broken, it was both bones in his left leg. So his radius and ulna are both broken. The x-ray photo shows the damage. Ouch! If you know much about the energy level of this breed, or for that matter, any 12 week old puppy, you know how hard it is for this little guy to have a broken leg! He’s so adorable and does his very best to hop along and has already figured out how to use only his rear legs and jump up on my sofa the minute I sit down (cringe). I’m trying to keep him from jumping at all, but it’s not as easy as it might seem. He shrieks bloody murder in his crate, but won’t stop bouncing around until he’s in my lap. Super cute! Poor little trooper. Once he’s in my lap, he seems perfectly content to watch the other little six week old puppy, who has just discovered toys, and will pick one up and shake it to death! Ohhh, be still my heart, these two are soooooo adorable. BTW, the little min pin is laying in my lap with his splinted leg resting on my keyboard. Lots of fun typing while trying not to disturb him.

We were given a reprieve on the euthanasia date of the cats we adopted out ten years ago as kittens. D-Day is now Thursday. Not that it matters, since it’s not like people are banging down the door to help three ten year old cats. We’re going to consider ourselves lucky if we’re even able to divide them up into three homes, and to-date we still need three homes (hint, hint). I know we’ve been down this path before with our volunteer Sandi’s senior cats after she passed away unexpectedly, but we have to try again. If anyone thinks they can open up a space in their heart and their life to take a cat, these cats are all three described as VERY sweet…

And not to forget the dogs who aren’t adorable little puppies but still desperately need our help, we’re trying to find a foster home for a sweet Rotti mix female that one of our volunteers rescued as a stray. Raven, as Kim named her, isn’t in super shape. This poor girl is a perfect example of a dog who has been ignored or discarded in a yard. She has some skin issues and is very thin. Still, she has a nice temperament, and virtually no hope of finding a home at the shelter. Her skin problem is an easy one to correct, it’s just going to take giving her a change to a quality diet. Raven has tiny little ears so she may be part Shar Pei, it’s hard to tell at this point. She isn’t as big as a Rottweiler, but has the coloring and sweet, soulful eyes.

We’re still collecting donated items for our “tag sale” and this weekend we got a taste of what kind of stuff we’re going to have at the sale. Holy smokes! It’s amazing what you all donated to us. Thank you so much! I can’t wait for the sale. It’s going to be very exciting!

So here we are at just before 3pm and I’m already needing to vent some of the crisis of the day. I didn’t blog at all yesterday, in-part because I was having a technical problem connecting to my server, but also, because I was taking advantage of the decent weather and winterized my house, along with rounding up bits and pieces for our upcoming tag sale…

This morning started with a call from our vet, telling us that one of our adopters from ten years ago who had adopted three kittens from us, had finally reached the breaking point with inappropriate toilet habits and needed us to take the cats back today. Evidently her husband has threatened to take all three of our cats, plus another they adopted a few years ago, to be euthanized if the cats don’t go today. Our vet told me he has been working with them over the past couple of years on ideas to stop the problem, but it sounds like bad chemistry between one or more of the cats has upset the apple cart, and because nothing has worked, hubby dearest is at the end of his rope. Hubby prefers to euthanize the cats because he doesn’t feel it is humane to bring the cats to a no-kill shelter because they may languish there. To be fair, the wife is devastated, but they are facing divorce at this point. Back to our reality. We don’t have a magic island! Where in the heck are we supposed to put three/four senior cats with one day’s notice? I am (almost) speechless. I can’t imagine what would make someone believe they could – with one day’s notice, call a rescue group made up entirely of foster homes and have them say, “Sure, we’ll drive right over and pick them up and take them to a beautiful cat island, where all the cats live peacefully together, and successfully use litter boxes.” So we’ll just try to figure out someone to take the cats, one at a time.

We also had a Mini Aussie show up at our ranch late yesterday. If you know the area, it’s a small possibility he wandered away from one of a dozen homes within a few mile radius, but more likely that he was dumped near our property because out in the country they believe our property is a rescue. I met “Timber” as Shannon named him, today, and he is very cute, and well behaved (aside from marking everything in sight), about 1.5 yrs old, and intact (and what a surprise, he’s marking everywhere!). His toe nails and pads don’t look like a dog who has been on the road very long. He was not wearing a collar and did not scan with a microchip.  We posted him as a found dog at Columbia County Animal Shelter and we’ll just hope someone is looking for him…

A couple of hours ago I got a call from someone who “found” a six week old Mini Aussie/Queensland Terrier puppy. When I asked where she found him, it turned out her 19 year old brother bought him from someone at the coast and five days later, he realized he doesn’t have time…the funniest part (as if there’s anything really funny about this nightmare)  is that the puppy doesn’t look like either a Mini Aussie, or a Queensland Terrier! As you know, normally we don’t take dogs from this type of dumb move, but I worry about a six week old puppy at the county shelter because of the potential for upper respiratory virus, etc., and when they’re this young they don’t have much immune system. So, we’re looking for a home for a really cute, smart little guy. Here are his pics. I don’t think we need to say much more about that!

Just a few minutes ago, the shelter called about a 3-4 month old Min Pin who came in with both front legs broken. They don’t have any history and don’t know what happened to him. I don’t have pics yet, but he needs to be rehabilitated and will be wearing splints for at least a few weeks. I will have pics tomorrow morning and will include those and blog about him as soon as I know more.

As an update, we’ve raised enough money for Elijah Blu to have his myelogram on Tuesday, October 12th. We haven’t raised enough money to do any surgery for him, but at least we will hopefully find out what’s wrong. Here’s a pic of Elijah from today. He just got a haircut!

Some of you may remember Jada, the young Boxer/Lab we intervened and took in to prevent her euthanasia by her former owner for having some obnoxious, defiant behaviors. Jada is actually a very sweet girl, with a very independent personality, and a very active brain. We placed Jada with a young, athletic couple about a month ago and it seemed like such a great match…that is until the woman of the couple found out her mom has cancer and was going to be staying with them during her cancer treatment. The couple was worried her activity level would be too much for their mom during her treatment and they vacillated for several weeks whether giving her up was the right thing to do because they really love Jada. Their mom didn’t want to be the reason they gave her up, but today they finally decided they do need to give Jada back. I’m sad for them and I’m sad for Jada, because it was an otherwise perfect match. So, back into the adoptable dog pool she goes…

Tried to find a foster for the little female Lhasa mix (details on my post from a few days ago), but no one responded so I’m going to suck it up and take her in myself. I have a feeling she’ll endear herself on someone pretty quickly and hopefully find either a new foster or a new home! Hoping, hoping, hoping.

We’re gearing up to take donations this Saturday, October 9th in Hillsboro, for our upcoming “Indigo Rescue Tag Sale” (we’ve decided to call it a tag sale so people don’t assume it’s just junk. After all, our donors donate some really nice stuff!!). If you have stuff to donate, we’ll be there collecting items from 11am to 4pm. The address for drop off is: 1942 SE Pine Hillsboro, OR 97123. This is a perfect time to clean up and clear out for the winter! The actual sale will be at the same address. This is a perfect time to clean up and clear out for the winter!

And if you’re a big fan of our Annual Fall Jewelry sale at the Cedar Hills Rec Center, that’s coming up, too! Our 11th Annual Fall Jewelry Sale will be this November 20th from 9am to 4pm and if you’ve never been to one of our jewelry sales, you’ve really got to try to come! It’s truly a spectacle, with jewelry of every type for every style, and TONS of it! We have jewelry sent to us year round from people from all over the country. We’ll have a flyer and announcement posted on the Home Page of our Indigo Rescue site very soon. Hope you can make it!

Last, as a reminder, next Tuesday, October 12th, OCU at Indigo Ranch will be featured in the Oregonian, as the last article submitted by Jacques VonLunen, the writer for the Pet Page. Jacques has taken a reporting position in the tri-cities and we wish him well. We’re also hoping he goes out with a triumphant story in us!

Our super great animal rescue liason, Mindy, from Taiwan, flew in late last night, and brought with her the sweetest young dog named Derek. As you may know, Taiwan has experienced several devastating Typhoons over the past couple of years and they already have a severe pet overpopulation problem, but with the Typhoons, many people lose their homes and as a result, there are even fewer homes for the dogs. In Derek’s case, he was apparently tossed off a motorcycle, by a woman! Mindy saw the incident and tried to speak to the woman but she quickly took off, leaving Mindy to grab Derek and get him off the street before he was hit by a car.

As always, we are faced with the moral dilemma in taking a dog from an0ther country when we have plenty of dogs who need homes right in our own backyard. In Derek’s case, a family who had already adopted one of our dogs from Taiwan last year, had recently inquired about rescuing another dog from Taiwan as a companion for the one they currently have. It was shortly after they inquired, that Mindy asked me about whether we might have an option for Derek. So, we all met at the airport last night and Jim took Derek as a ‘foster to adopt’; which we liken to a ‘rent to perm’ kind of deal, only with dogs. Seriously, barring any bad chemistry problems between the dogs, I’m quite sure Derek has a permanent home already, because:

a) He’s flippin’ adorable! He has really soft, cream colored fur with apricot tips, and a super long plume of a tail.

b) He’s less than a year old, playful and really sweet with other dogs

Derek took an immediate liking to Jim’s hat at the airport and we had a heck of a time getting it away from him (see pics). In the car, he turned his attention on tearing up a napkin, and tossing a “toy”, just so he could pounce on it. This was after more than 24 hours of time in a kennel in the belly of an airplane, traveling through three airports and layovers.

Here are some pics of Derek’s arrival for your enjoyment.