StarfishSaving
09-04-2006, 04:29 AM
Miracles do happen. I know this. There's a folder in my Outlook where certain email lists I'm a member of get sent. One particular folder is dedicated to those crossposted transport and rescue pleas. Emails march in by the hundreds, filling up disk space with their photos and repeated subject lines. So many, in fact, that the word "URGENT" seems to lose its meeting while at the same time becoming even more desperate. Most of the time all I can do is skim and delete.
One of those emails came to me one day from a Bulldog rescue person pleading for the life a 16 year old lhasa whose owner was moving and leaving his dogs behind. For some reason, this one stood out among the rest and though we don't necessarily have any real room, I responded.
After just a few days, I'd found transport to get the dog here and communications with the dog's owner suggested the sooner, the better. Everything was a go but more than a week after I'd committed to her, a lhasa rescue person stepped out of nowhere and said "we have an adopter, we're pulling the dog." I was upset but would rather she went to a forever home where she would live out her days than be possibly bounced around so I stepped back and let the other rescue work on it. The adopter was a mere 3 hours away and yet, somehow, they never managed to transport her.
After almost two weeks from the date she was to have been transported to me, we got in touch with the owner and not only was the dog still there, he had never been contacted by a lhasa rescue person the entire time. The "adopter" even said no one had spoken with her about it and she was going to have to fulfill other obligations (to foster, etc.)
So now here sits Baby, with no one to speak for her, and it's getting close to the deadline date where she will be taken to the local shelter (and killed, judging from her poor physical condition.)
I posted to a few lists and others begging for a temporary place where she can get on the road to recovery until I can pick her up this weekend when I go to an adoption event in Eastern PA. The 1st MIRACLE came when a great lady from an English setter group I'm a volunteer for stepped up and agreed to help transport and foster the dog.
In the matter of a couple of days, everything came together. Someone from the English bulldog rescue who had initially told me about Baby went to evaluate her health and situation for me, talked to the owner, and arranged to help transport the dog to her temporary safe harbor. All this started coming together so fast my head is spinning.
Living *outside*, FILTHY, a little matted, totally coated in fleas and flea dirt, with mats and mud clogging her ears and infection in her eyes, this VERY OLD gal is getting a chance that most dogs her age just don't have. I hope she can take the stress of separation at this age and I am hoping to find a retirement home for her.
We're looking for MIRACLE 2- for someone to put their own emotions aside and not look at the time she has left as a cruelty but a blessing. Someone who will love her for the dog that she has become in her old age.
TODAY, Baby is FREE!!! Free from her chain and from the confines of poor health. Free to enjoy what time she has left without being stranded in the wind, rain, snow or heat. What she really needs is a quiet place to rest her head. If you or someone you know would like to offer this girl that place, please contact us! She's eligible for our retirement program, a lifetime fostering system in which we do not charge a fee.
Just threw together a webpage for her with a couple photos: http://www.starfish.rescuegroups.org/animals/detail?AnimalID=56268
Thanks for reading. :)
One of those emails came to me one day from a Bulldog rescue person pleading for the life a 16 year old lhasa whose owner was moving and leaving his dogs behind. For some reason, this one stood out among the rest and though we don't necessarily have any real room, I responded.
After just a few days, I'd found transport to get the dog here and communications with the dog's owner suggested the sooner, the better. Everything was a go but more than a week after I'd committed to her, a lhasa rescue person stepped out of nowhere and said "we have an adopter, we're pulling the dog." I was upset but would rather she went to a forever home where she would live out her days than be possibly bounced around so I stepped back and let the other rescue work on it. The adopter was a mere 3 hours away and yet, somehow, they never managed to transport her.
After almost two weeks from the date she was to have been transported to me, we got in touch with the owner and not only was the dog still there, he had never been contacted by a lhasa rescue person the entire time. The "adopter" even said no one had spoken with her about it and she was going to have to fulfill other obligations (to foster, etc.)
So now here sits Baby, with no one to speak for her, and it's getting close to the deadline date where she will be taken to the local shelter (and killed, judging from her poor physical condition.)
I posted to a few lists and others begging for a temporary place where she can get on the road to recovery until I can pick her up this weekend when I go to an adoption event in Eastern PA. The 1st MIRACLE came when a great lady from an English setter group I'm a volunteer for stepped up and agreed to help transport and foster the dog.
In the matter of a couple of days, everything came together. Someone from the English bulldog rescue who had initially told me about Baby went to evaluate her health and situation for me, talked to the owner, and arranged to help transport the dog to her temporary safe harbor. All this started coming together so fast my head is spinning.
Living *outside*, FILTHY, a little matted, totally coated in fleas and flea dirt, with mats and mud clogging her ears and infection in her eyes, this VERY OLD gal is getting a chance that most dogs her age just don't have. I hope she can take the stress of separation at this age and I am hoping to find a retirement home for her.
We're looking for MIRACLE 2- for someone to put their own emotions aside and not look at the time she has left as a cruelty but a blessing. Someone who will love her for the dog that she has become in her old age.
TODAY, Baby is FREE!!! Free from her chain and from the confines of poor health. Free to enjoy what time she has left without being stranded in the wind, rain, snow or heat. What she really needs is a quiet place to rest her head. If you or someone you know would like to offer this girl that place, please contact us! She's eligible for our retirement program, a lifetime fostering system in which we do not charge a fee.
Just threw together a webpage for her with a couple photos: http://www.starfish.rescuegroups.org/animals/detail?AnimalID=56268
Thanks for reading. :)