Dooley is under a year old and a very happy and go-lucky fellow. He’s a nifty dog, learns very quickly and hasn’t met a single person who isn’t immediately on his BFF list. He is a little bouncy (but hey – he’s a puppy!) and he likes to carry things in his mouth like car keys and his favorite stuffed duck. He will bravely lead giant ponies like Sampson. He can walk himself on a leash. He comes when you call him, even if there is something very interesting going on. He’s pretty awesome and he’s pretty satisfied with his life so far. He knows he has all the food he can eat, lots of great people to meet and lots of space to run with puppy friends.
And that’s the problem. Remember the puppy with the broken jaw who had very clearly had a horribly crappy life? We had lots of interest on adopting him. We had another puppy come in that City Chick never even got to meet because he immediately went home with one of our clients – poor pup’s leg was all chewed up and infected and he had lots of puncture marks. He would have been snatched up very quickly if he hadn’t gotten adopted about 3 hours after he arrived. He had had a crappy life too. But Dooley hasn’t had a horribly crappy life from what we can see. He had a sort of crappy day where he was on his own for awhile before Garden Girl found him on the side of the road and brought him back to the Farm. Dooley isn’t damaged. There is no recovery time on him as he never was injured. He’s neutered, microchipped and fully vaccinated, well socialized and very capable of being a great dog. And no one wants him.
Copyright: Pam’s Photography
City Chick does some work with multiple pet rescue organizations through her real job. And she’s always amazed at some of these great dogs that have trouble finding homes. She doesn’t get it. Many of them have similar stories – a kind person finds them dumped on the side of the road, no obvious damage physically or mentally, just had the bad luck of having an owner that didn’t recognize them as living and sentient beings and threw them out with the garbage.
So . . . City Chick is putting it out there. Dooley is way too awesome to be hanging out at the Farm. The Farm is full up on full-time Farm Dogs, so he really, really, really would like a person or a family to call his own. He is housebroken. He gets along with with pretty much everyone – poultry, horses, cows, goats, people, dogs. City Chick has seen the farm cats teach him some manners – he thinks they are really fun to bark at and he gets his face a little too close to theirs sometimes. He is a little baffled at pigs – he doesn’t do anything but bark at them to see if they’ll play. They won’t. They are disgusted by his antics. He likes kids, but can be a little bit bouncy/excitable for smaller kiddos unless they are the rough and tumble type of child. He would be a fantastic running buddy as he loves to get out and move.
So, Dooley says, “Please – will you help me find my home? I promise I’ll be as good as I know how and will happily learn anything you need to teach me. I’ll love you lots and lots and always make you laugh and be so glad that you found me.”
Although City Chick grew up in Indiana, on the actual edge of corn and soybean fields, with way more fields than are near Farm Narnia, she apparently has quite a bit to learn about living in the “country”. One of these things she is learning is that dog dumping at a nearby park is the “thing” to do. That’s right . . . when you’re tired of dealing with annoying puppy behavior that requires that thing called, uh training, to resolve the behavior into an inter-species compromise that all parties can live with, you just drive down the road and kick or push the dog out of your vehicle into the very, very large and scary park. Because dogs like to go to parks, right? Never mind that the entire place has packs of coyotes and other predators who would just love to have your puppy as dinner. Or perhaps you’d like someone else to accidentally hit your dog (which shouldn’t be wandering around in the road next to the park) with their car. Might as well let someone else do the dirty work of killing your relatively defenseless pet right – which roll of the dice will your ditched dog get – death by being hunted by a coyote pack or being hit by a car? (City Chick SWEARS she will put her soap box away after this. PROMISE!) So, somehow in the 3+ years that City Chick has been visiting at Farm Narnia, she has been blissfully ignorant of the idiot ignoramuses who have been dumping their dogs in the park until the last 3 weeks. Story 1 has a lovely ending. Story 2 . . . well, we’re still waiting on seeing how this turns out.
Story #1: Stella
It is a Thursday night and it is LOVELY riding weather. Of course City Chick is HOT to get horses and get riding because it is her favorite thing to do. Farm Girl is being all wishy washy in the Studio, whining about doing things like work. Farm Girl’s phone announces an incoming text message (an about every 30 second occurrence) and she announces that neighbor friend Jody just saw a dog get dumped at the park, but was unable to capture it despite several wily puppy catching techniques. Farm Girl asks City Chick if we’re interested in trying to catch the dog? City Chick sighs (and . . . is still wearing her work clothes and high heels) and says, “Yes.” because even though she really wants to ride, she can’t imagine not going to at least try to get the dog before it gets dark and scary out. Farm Girl goes into Farm General mode . . . she begins to start rounding up the troops, finding tempting treats, multiple lead ropes, a collar, the list was never ending and City Chick was over the waiting part. (She’s not too good with waiting sometimes.) She hops in her car and drives down the road to the approximate location the dog was last seen by neighbor friend Jody. And sure enough, a very cute and tidy sized young dog runs across the road and into some higher grass in front of the car (on the park road – not the big road!). City Chick hops out, opens the back door and begins to coax the dog over in her direction. The poor thing, a red and white beagle mix of sort, with a super cute face begins to do the puppy belly crawl towards her and the car. She rises up and thinks about jumping in the backseat when she has a bit of a panic and starts to bolt. City Chick does a semi-risky thing and snags her by the scruff of her neck and gets her sort of smooshed to the ground, picks her up and gets her in the backseat . . . there was almost an escape while the door was being shut, but then the dog is sitting on the seat, panting heavily with nervous. SCORE! City Chick then hops in the car herself and motors out of the park, right about at the time that Farm Girl shows up with the truck and the troops. Rolling down the her window and pointing to the back seat, City Chick proudly announces, “I got her!” and proceeds back to the farm. A leash and collar are found for Miss Stella (she told us that was her name) and she was released from the back seat of the car. Some extra delicious rotisserie chicken magically appeared before her and she decided the day wasn’t going as badly as she thought. We did a relatively quick behavior assessment and determined she was super sweet and a quick learner. We later learned that she hated being in crates, but seemed to get the whole going potty outside thing. She also learned to fly into Kuhs Kid #1’s arms (and let’s point out that this is a 6ft+ tall kid) by virtue of having springs for legs. She LOVED running about the farm and would follow Kuhs Kid #1 anywhere he went on the ATV or on his bike with absolute delight. She figured she was going to make the best of her new situation and was a super sweet and lovely dog with lots of energy that could be positively channeled. We put out the notice on Facebook that we had a very cute and very smart puppy who had been dumped but was ready to find her forever home. The magic of social media being what it is, she had a new home, complete with 4 kids (debating on who wears out first – 4 kids or the puppy?) of her very own. Ahhhh, Stella, it was a fantastic 3 days with you . . . you were pretty awesome. And, as it turns out, pretty lucky because she was in one piece and at a good weight – she just needed to be in the right environment to succeed.
Smile for the camera, Stella! (And yes, if you look carefully, you can see that City Chick hasn’t quite managed to get her boots on and the work shoes are still in evidence.)
Story #2 – He doesn’t have a name yet because we keep changing it . . . I’m going to call him Mac (which will be new to everyone who has met him) because apparently this poor dog got hit by a truck – figuratively and possibly literally.
It is about 5:45 on Saturday night. It has a been a brutally hot day during which City Chick insisted on riding and dragging Farm Girl with her. They have just finished with putting the horses out and the two mules who are on day-time barn guarding duty because the flies are having a contest to see which one they can chew up the worst in the pasture (the team Samuel flies are winning against the team Roper flies for those of you who know them). Kuhs Kid #1 is waiting for his dad to come and pick him up to go to a concert at 6. City Chick is about to pack it in and head home for the night to blessedly wonderful central air-conditioning (because no one wants to hang out in 93 degrees with 43% humidity. It is just too miserable, even at Farm Narnia.) when one of our future grooms, who also happens to live on a cottage on the property with his lovely fiance) pulls up in his car and pulls this small, pitiful heap of a dog out of it and sets him on his feet, near the rear bumper. Farm Girl procures kibble and water for the poor guy as we check out his damage. Yes . . . damage. Poor Mac is a puppy of pit bull descent. He is sort of thin, has a big old choke chain on his neck, complete with leash dragging behind it (SERIOUSLY PEOPLE – are you trying to make it easier for the coyotes to get him by ensuring he gets tangled in brush while he’s trying to run for his little life?!), his ears are notched up, he has puncture wounds under his neck, one eye shows a very bloody red in the whites when he looks in a certain direction, and there is something definitely funky going on with his jaw. OK, so the puncture wounds are not earth shattering, but he is bleeding from the mouth a little bit, that eye is sort of scary looking and WTF is going on with that jaw? There is a very hard “swelling” underneath it and something does not look right when you can see inside of his mouth when he pants. Farm Girl dials into the regular vet who suggests a 24 hour place about 20 minutes away. The decision is made, the poor stinky puppy is gathered up in a towel and the Rocket Rogue is pressed into action with Farm Girl at the wheel and City Chick sitting shot gun with an extra passenger on her lap.
Mac upon arrival. Note the choke collar and the leash came with him.
City Chick isn’t going to go into the vet visit too much. It was a little strange . . . but we walked away with new information about our now latest rescue:
1) He is an intact male of the pit bull persuasion. Approximately 3 – 8 months old. We decide we’re going to split the difference and call him 5 months.
2) He is on the thin side of normal and somewhat dehydrated, but can eat and drink well (because he hoovered down the kibble we offered him after he drank an insane amount of water before we left the farm) and weighs a surprisingly solid 30 pounds.
3) Farm Girl and City Chick also note the length and non-wear of his nails in addition to him having paw pads that are very, very soft with no callus at all. Strange for a puppy. Unless said puppy was kept in a crate virtually all of the time.
4) He does have puncture wounds on his neck. Possibly from teeth. Could also potentially be road rash from being hit by a car . . .
5) He does not have a rear broken left leg. He does not have a broken pelvis. He does not have a diaphragmatic hernia. (Which, apparently would have been very, very, very bad.)
6) He does seem to have a some sort of nerve damage to the rear left leg. Again – possibly a car collision involved?
7) He has had some damage to his head and eye area – hence the red eye whites – it is indicative of very bad bruising. (As we’ve looked more closely today, it seems like his whole little face is swollen.)
7) He has a broken jaw. A broken jaw that had happened at least a week prior, maybe longer. That “something that does not look right in his mouth when he pants” – uh, that would be the jaw bone that is exposed.
So, this very, very sweet little baby doll of a puppy has had this severe injury for at least 7 days. Say it with City Chick: PEOPLE SUCK!
The good news is that he is now very pain-drugged up and sleeping (and if you rub his belly, he stays sound asleep but stretches out and flexes his toes) and has a certified canine dental surgeon ready to evaluate his jaw on Monday and we can take him back to the farm with us since he is able to eat and drink on his own.
So . . . he got a bath and now is no longer the “stinky puppy”, followed us all around the Farm this morning until he had worn himself out so much he required an almost all-afternoon puppy-nap. So far, he has been super with every single person he has met (cause, what’s not to like about every single human cooing over you and scratching your itchy spots), has been quite polite with every cat he has encountered, was lovely when meeting 3 other dogs throughout the day and didn’t show any inclination to pursue chickens. We’re anxious to see what the vet says tomorrow morning about his jaw – it is definitely going to require some sort of treatment, it is just a matter of finding out if it is going to be surgery with brackets and screws (which would suck) or if he can have a “tape muzzle” since he still has rather soft puppy bones and only has about half or less of his adult teeth erupted. Keep your fingers crossed for Mr. Mac – he certainly deserves some more good news after having such a crappy start in life. City Chick (who has two incredibly SPOILED dogs) thinks it is a pretty sad state when today was probably the best day of this pup’s life just because he had people be nice to him and feed him – despite the fact that he is hobbling around a bit and has, oh yeah, a broken jaw.
On a some people are really, really awesome note – some neighbors that come to get fresh produce from the garden and eggs stopped by today and left us with a generous check for our rescue (we’re legit, we swear! We’re just waiting for the final federal paperwork to come through, but all of the state paperwork is done and we have our EIN too) after meeting this poor guy and hearing about his story – at least what we’ve pieced together so far.
Some happier pictures from today:
Mac shows that strange “swelling” on the left side of his mouth and his slightly sunken in eyes.Mac, giving us a better view of how his jaw is just not right and how his tongue sticks out.Mac says, “Rub my belly, please?”
Kuhs Farm 