A handsome hunk of dog

I got an email a few weeks back from a woman who works with another rescue organization in Richmond. She had been approached at an adoption event by a couple with a German Shepherd named Brody. A friend of their son's had found Brody and turned him into the local animal control authority, but pulled the dog when he wasn't claimed. He had been living with this couple for a while now, but they weren't really wanting a dog, although they had nothing but good things to say about Brody.

Everything they said about Brody sounded too good to be true. Big, young, good looking male shepherd, neutered, vaccinated, and housetrained. I wanted someone else to meet him before I made the trip to be sure, but we couldn't work it out before I left for Kansas. Besides, he was in a safe place and was being well cared for, so we put it off until I got back.

I met the folks over in Shortpump last weekend and brought him home. Brody was everything they said, and more. He's a big, handsome hunk of shepherd, and just as sweet and friendly as can be. Now, he apparently doesn't react too well to aggressive or dominant dogs, and he raised a lip to warn off another shepherd he's bunking with, but that's really well within the bounds of acceptable and anticipated canine behavior.

The only problem with Brody is that I can't remember his damn name! I'm always calling him Bosco, Benny, Bailey, or anything other than Brody. I don't know why because it's a perfectly fine name; for some reason it just doesn't come to my lips. I don't think it will matter, however, because I can't imagine that I will have Brody for long. I just submitted his pics to the website today, but I expect to have several interested people by the weekend. Anyone who doesn't jump at the chance to adopt this dog is crazy.

A week away

I was in Kansas for a week visiting my mother. The little guy shown here is my mother's dog, Murphy. He's a little mutt with a raccoon face mask. Very cute, and very devoted to my mother. He likes other people well enough, but is really only interested in her. Nothing wrong with that.

He shares her complete intolerance for flies in the house, and like her, will stop at nothing to get one once he sees it. It's really funny to watch him snap at flies and pursue them around the house. It's equally funny to watch my mother with a flyswatter at my house in muggy and buggy Virginia where the doors and dogs let in a multitude of flies.

My mother has a wonderful yard and gardens. There wasn't too much that needed my help this time of year, but we got a few things done and had some fun as well.

Kansas was unusually green for this time of year. I guess they've had more rain than normal. The milo fields were at the stage where the heads of grain were just beginning to ripen, turning from green to gold. Native sunflowers were in full bloom along the roadsides, and here in my mother's backyard, grown up under a bird feeder. Sunflowers are now a cultivated crop in Kansas as well, and a field of them in bloom is an incredible sight. We saw some in the early stages of bloom on a drive back from Kansas City, but I didn't have my camera.

Well, one week away from the blog turned into two, and is now going on three. It's fairly easy to let things slide, even things I used to enjoy. My garden is one example, and fostering dogs is another. Since I've been back I've taken in just two dogs, but even worse if the fact that I haven't been promoting the ones I have. I have several dogs not yet on any website.

Everybody loves Brady

Brady is a dog's dog. Everyone loves him, he's every dog's best friend. He's big enough to play with Sparky and any shepherd, but small enough to play nicely with Teddy and even little Pi.
He's never been intimidated by a dog of any size and seems to enjoy mixing it up with the big boys like Chance (adopted).
Brady is the first dog that most new fosters get to meet at our place and he shows them around and gives a pretty good introduction. It seems to put them at ease to see how happy he is.


I'm not sure I've ever met a human equivalent to Brady. If such a person exists, he or she gets along with everyone, enjoys many different activities and styles of play, and loves everyone but is looking for one special person to bond with.

Brady will sit and pose for the camera, looking directly at you without the least bit of self consciousness. So why is he still here with me instead of being in a home of his own? Obviously I'm doing something wrong.

He's great at adoption events. He works the crowd well, is cute, sweet, and loving. He's been in two different homes, neither of which worked out. He was too rowdy, hard-headed, and wild for the first. In the second home, he had matured a bit and a lot of those problems were gone. However, he developed such an attachment on one person in the home that he didn't want anyone else around. That could be handled in right (child-free) home, but we haven't found it yet.

The revolving door

I have started doing intake work for VGSR for dogs from most of the state except northern Virginia and Tidewater areas. My house has been a revolving door since it started. A week ago today I drove down to Natural Bridge to bring back the little girl shepherd I just called JaneDoe.

JaneDoe is now being called Anastasia; she was spayed on Monday and is doing well (shown here coming out of her crate, still a little groggy, the day of her surgery). She will be going to a VGSR foster home in Maryland on Saturday. Until then, she's learning to deal with being crated and is doing pretty well with it after one day of whining about it. She needs it after her surgery anyway and being around the house dogs helps her social skills as well.

On Monday, Nina arrived from Bath County, Virginia, courtesy of another rescue group. She's a beauty, and she's a goat killer. People are not too smart. They left Nina outdoors when they were gone with a goat that was tied up. Apparently they had lived together for a while, along with other farm animals, but the owners returned home one day to find a dead goat and German Shepherd Dog who was extremely proud of herself for providing dinner.

She obviously needs to go to a goat-free home in the city or suburbs. A third rescue group in also involved because they were planning to take her in but didn't have a foster home available. They do have an interested adopter, however, so I'm still waiting to see if she will be making the trasport trip with me on Saturday to another foster home.

Also on Monday the two male hound puppies went back to the SPCA. The were to have neuter surgery that day and then go up for adoption. They've grown back their hair and are as cute as they will ever be, so it is time for them to find homes. The two males were the noisiest of the pups, so things were already much quieter around here Monday evening.

The only people happier about this than me are Clay, and probably our neighbors. I've sworn the no-more-hounds pledge.

On Tuesday, the two female hounds and Pi went back to the SPCA. The two girls were to be spayed that day and they are all staying there now for adoption. I do miss Pi, sort of, but he was picking up on the hound pups' vocalization habits. After taking three pups back to the SPCA in the morning, I drove over to Richmond in the afternoon to pick up Max.

Max is a long haired German Shepherd and I'm not entirely clear why he was given up. He's very well cared for and very well behaved. He had been the husband's dog originally, but ended up with the wife and child after their divorce. Ex-wife and child are allergic. I suspect there is more to the story, but he's a great dog, so who cares? I just hope I don't get one of those "you've got my dog and I want him back" calls from the ex-husband when he finds out.

He as been fine here in the kennels, but still has a confused look on his face. He will be making the trip on Saturday to his new VGSR foster home, also in Maryland.

The last one in this week will also be the first one out. Lexi was a VGSR dog when she was a pup and has been returned by her owner who had fallen on some very hard times recently. We all say that we'd never give up our dogs, but there are situations where people really don't have any choice and giving up the dog is truely the best thing for the dog. It sounds like this was one of those situations, so I'm glad that the person did the right thing for the dog.

Lexi is going to be fostered by an excellent VGSR foster home over in the valley and will be picked up later this afternoon by her new foster mom. She's a little shell shocked, but will be ok.

I have a few more incoming dogs in the works, but they will have to wait until the first week of September when I'm back from Kansas. I think I'll end up with Nina as a foster, but that's fine.

Success and failure

We had a visitor at our house last week. His name is Stonewall, or Stoney for short. He stays with us whenever his mom goes out of town. He hangs out in the office with Molly, Emmylou, and me, generally on a bed placed under the desk and up against the wall.

Stoney is a real character. He's spoiled rotten and has managed to get pretty much anything he wants whenever he wants. He stamps his feet, snorts, and shakes his head when he wants to eat, play, or go outside. He is very expressive and there is never any doubt about what Stoney wants.

Like all rotties, Stoney has a big smile. He was given up a few years ago by a young woman who had been through a divorce, worked long hours, didn't have time, etc.

Shortly after I got him, I heard from our vet that a client of theirs had lost her rottie to old age and might be interested in another. She reads my blog and I'm not going to embarass her by extolling her virtues at great length, but suffice it to say that she is exactly the type of adopter I adore.

She was a great match for Stoney and I always consider them one of my best matches in rescue work. Every adoption is a great success for the dog, but every once in a while it happens that the needs of the dog and person are so closely matched, so perfectly complementary, that it is impossible to say who benefits more from the relationship. Stoney's adoption is one of those.

I don't take any credit for the success of Stoney's adoption. He and his mom are the ones who made it work. I do make plenty of mistakes in this business though, and Jake was one. He was a terrified little dog I saw huddled in the corner of his run at the Fluvanna SPCA one day when I went in to meet another dog. He was extremely fearful to the extent of being fear aggressive. He was about to be euthanized so I brought him home to see if he would come around once he was out of the shelter environment.

I kept Jake a couple months or more and never made a bit of progress. I never managed to touch the dog all the time he was here. He got along with the other dogs, was happy and playful, but when I'd come in to feed, he would run from me and bark aggressively. Before our trip to New York, I had to catch him to take him the boarding kennel. When we finally cornered him, he growled and snapped, and I thought that the chances of a bite were pretty high. I was able to drop a slip lead over his head but had to drag him out of the kennel. He fought the leash so hard, choking himself until he finally collapsed in exhaustion. I managed to get him into a crate and eventually into a run at the kennel, but I knew what had to be done when we returned.

Jake was not a bad dog. I have no idea what sort of life he must have led to make him that fearful of people, but I knew that I couldn't help him and that he was a danger.

I had decided long ago that it didn't make sense to jeopardize an entire rescue operation to save one dog. If I had unlimited time and resources, and if there were no other dogs needing help, I could have kept Jake and worked on him, or just kept him until the end of his days.

I doped him up on acepromazine and got him to a vet for euthanization. I held him and kissed him until he was finally at peace. Jake got a raw deal in this world; I hope he will have better luck in another life, another world, or whatever. I don't dwell on the failures, but I do remember them. Jake deserves to be remembered but not as a failure. He was a fine dog who was failed by humanity.

The good life

Samson is a big, sweet, goofy shepherd. He's living the good life in Richmond with an owner that makes him the center of her world. She's a nurse and sometimes works long shifts, but has found an "adventure walker" for him on those days. This guy takes Samson and his other clients on a good long hike, a swim, and then washes them off before returning them home.

It sounds like fun, and a great business idea too. I'm thinking about it, as I'm still unemployed, although I may be getting some fairly steady work from LexisNexis again starting in September.

Email from Tippy's new home brought news that she had passed her Canine Good Citizen test. They are now going to do something called "Delta Dog" and she says: "She is just as sweet and I thought she would be, I love her and want to share her sweet temperament with other folks that can’t have dogs. "

Samantha went home from last Sunday's adoption event in Gainesville. It is a really great home and she has a doberman playmate. Her new owner writes:

"She has been great--very agreeable & nice & even-tempered. She & the Doberman are good buddies already & we take lots of walks around the woods & yard. I have kept Terra on a leash when we go for frequent walks & she has been fine with that. She is eating & drinking just fine. She goes into her crate when I ask her to & she likes getting a biscuit when I close the door. She enjoys the squeaky & plush toys. I think we are all going to get along great. She is a real sweetie."

I had a phone call last night from Sassy's new home. She is extremely attached to the father who is retired and home with her all the time. They are setting limits so her attachment doesn't become an obsession. In addition to a boatload of physical ailments, German Shepherds are poster children for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Excessive attachment can lead to aggression if the dog decides that he or she wants no one else near that person. That was the problem with Hercules and quite a few other shepherds who weren't as lucky as Herc. Let's hope that Sassy and her new owners can get a handle on it before it gets out of control. A very big thing they've got going for them is a beautiful home in the country with lots of walking, running, and swimming. A good amount of physical exercise should keep the dog busy and tired so that she doesn't have time or energy to devote to obsessive behavior.

Sable is a rescue rottweiler who has taken up therapy work at a retirement home. Sable has a persistent recurring problem with perianal fistulas, but is lucky to have a home where she is both loved and extremely well cared for. Rotties are wonderful therapists because they will sit, lean, and let anyone pet them, in any manner, for hours. When she's not working, Sable likes to sing along when her dad plays the piano. Our Jack was also a singer. When he heard something high pitched like a harmonica, he would sit, throw back his head, and sing unabashedly.

Vick is back

Michael Vick is back in the NFL. The only good thing about him playing football again is the remote chance that he will be seriously or fatally injured. Let him ask the dogs he killed for forgiveness, he's not getting any from me.