Nyla's Story

Shelter day is never very much fun. It consists of walking back in front of kennels full of desperate dogs, taking each and every one out for a walk, trying objectively to weigh each one’s adoptability and eventually making difficult choices about which dogs we can help.

The day I met Nyla, her bark was the very first thing that caught my attention when I walked through the kennel doors. It sounded ferocious. When I looked to see who was making that noise, I saw a 70 pound beast jumping and lunging at her kennel door.  I decided to steer clear and started my evaluations on the other side of the kennels.

Nyla never stopped barking, never eased up on the frontal assault to her kennel door. I wondered why she wasn’t housed back in the quarantine room. It seemed dangerous to have her in with all of the adoptable dogs. “No way this one is adoptable,” I thought.

I dismissed the notion of walking Nyla without a thought. I wrote a big “NO” next to her name on the list.

Eventually, I had to walk the dogs in the kennels surrounding her, however, and something shifted.  When Nyla saw me coming in her direction with the leash, she took a moment’s pause in her barking each and every time. Her eyes honed in on that leash like two lasers and for a millisecond she was quiet. When I passed, she resumed the attack dog routine and I shook my head.

But I began stopping for an extra few seconds each time. Just to see. Each time she stared so hard at that leash, I thought it might catch fire. And each time I walked away she resumed her threatening behavior. Except I started to see it differently. Maybe it wasn’t so threatening. Maybe it was more desperate than anything else. I looked at her kennel paper. She was an owner surrender and she had already been in the shelter more than a few weeks. Being an “owner surrender” means she might have been snatched up off of a comfy couch without warning and dropped unceremoniously here in a concrete kennel with no access to outside and no human contact apart from cleaning and feeding. Being an “owner surrender” means a housetrained dog is forced to soil his or her tiny living area on a daily basis because no one comes with a leash.

The leash. “She wants to go for a walk,” I thought. “She just wants out.” But the cautious part of my brain warned that it would be crazy to open the door and enter a small space with a very large, angry dog.  A very bad idea, indeed.

I did it anyway. I entered ever so cautiously, just an arm at first and then a leg, hand on the door at all times, never taking my eye off of the dangerous animal before me. I had no idea what Nyla would do and I kept thinking “this is crazy.”

The ferocious beast responded by sitting down and wagging her tail. I put the leash around her neck to make a no-slip collar and we walked out of the kennel together.

Well, truthfully, Nyla joyfully drug me the entire length of the hallway and burst through the doors like she was shot out of a cannon. Once outside, she tried to run in circles and go in every direction at once. I put her in an outdoor pen and she ran and ran and ran in the tiny space.

Clearly, Nyla’s “no” needed to bceome a “yes” and this girl needed out of the shelter! That was a no-brainer, but this tale wasn’t easily transformed into a happy ending,  Nyla was large. And loud. There was no space for her at the Lost dog Ranch and more kennel time was not going to do her any good anyway. She needed to get into a foster home where she could be reminded how to be a family dog and someone with a good eye could observe her and make sure there were no real aggression issues.

I knew who I wanted right away. Caitlyn was a relatively new foster, but one with tons of energy and an appreciation for big, energetic dogs. Her Duke is young and playful and appreciates rowdy playmates, so I figured if Nyla could get along with other dogs, this would be ideal. Texting and photo sharing began right there in the play yard at the shelter- Operation Nyla’s Freedom was underway!

Caitlyn came through and the rest is sort of history. Well, it is at least someone else’s tale of transformation. It took some time to get Nyla out of the shelter and into Caitlyn’s capable hands, but as I had suspected, Caitllyn loved Nyla on sight and Nyla loved every minute of her time with Caitlyn and Duke. It was unexpectedly short, however. Nyla was such a well-behaved and beautiful dog that she found her forever family in no time.

As of this writing, Christmas 2010, Nyla is back on the couch where she belongs, at the center of a loving family. I’m fairly positive they have never heard that ferocious bark and I pray that Nyla will never, ever again be so desperate that she has to communicate with such sound and fury.

Transformations

As we close out 2010, the theme Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation has chosen to highlight is Transformations. The awesome video put together by Collen Learch showcases the amazing transformation from homeless and hopeless to adopted and adored. If you haven't yet watched, now is a good time. Guaranteed to make you smile! Click here to view the video.

All of this talk of transformation has gotten me to thinking about the transformations I am privileged to observe on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, there is a pretty incredibly one unfolding right here in my office...

Sadie came to us skinny, terrified and dirty. Not that unusual, but she also had nine brand new puppies in tow. She was so scared, she had to be carried everywhere and when she was placed outside or on the floor, she just curled up in a ball. Sadie took really good care of her babies, but each and every one of them was claimed by canine herpes- a disease she probably contracted at the shelter and passed to them at birth. That meant that on top of being skinny, scared and in bad physical shape, Sadie was also flooded with hormones she couldn't release and grieving for her puppies.

Sadie stayed on a dog bed in the corner of my office closet for a long time. Each and every trip outside was an ordeal and as soon as she got back in she'd curl right back up into that ball. She wouldn't even eat for the longest time unless she was fed one hand full at a time and with no noise or distraction nearby. If we approached to pet her, she hid her face. 

Slowly, however, things changed. Sadie started wagging her tail the tiniest bit when I entered the room and then more and more enthusiastically. Next, Sadie started to creep out of her bed towards me when I had my back turned. Granted, she would run right back to safety if I looked at her, but it was a start!

Our biggest breakthrough came one day when I went outside with the other dogs and left the front door open. After standing in the yard a few minutes I looked up to see Sadie standing next to me!! I wanted to jump with joy, hug her tight and do a dance. Instead, I looked away and very quietly said, "gooood girl."

Since then, Sadie has made enormous strides. She licks my hands, she jumps on me when I have my back turned, she goes in and out of the house on her own to conduct potty business and she races down the driveway when I return. Most importantly, she is learning to play. As I type she and Freida the cattle dog (a whole other transformation story) are play bowing, play biting, and dancing around the office floor. The sound of their tapping nails is music to my ears.

Talia's Tale: Broken Heart in the Most Literal Sense

This might be the only photo that exists of Talia, the one we took for the website when things were brighter and we hoped to find her a loving home. If there are other photos, they would have been taken later and they wouldn't wouldn't show the bright-eyed Talia we would like to remember.

Talia was a teeny tiny beagle with great big eyes and a habit of crouching in terror when any human approached. If you used a soft voice, however, she would wag her tail while crouching and eventually put her chin in kind hands and crawl into a waiting lap. This is what we wanted for her future- kind words every day and a lap anytime she wanted it.

There really wasn't a future at all for Talia, however. She came to us in February and I bid her goodbye last night- a very short stay in the land of comfort and love.

When I started this blog, my intent was to share some success stories and a little bit of the joy that rescued animals bring to my daily existence. The heartbreak, I believe, is best left to other venues and is certainly not to be dwelt upon.

Talia, however, and the others like her, deserves her moment.

Unlike so many abandoned and neglected beagles, Talia got a golden opportunity. She got rescued. In one fell swoop, her bleak little life became one of possibility- a new home, a soft bed, plenty of food and companionship were all to be hers. She was totally poised to be the star of someone's life.

Except for the matter of her heart.

Talia came to us heartworm positive like so many rural dogs. Like we do for all the rest, we had her treated- an expensive and painful procedure. Unlike the others, however, Talia didn't recover very well. In fact, she began a serious decline with fainting spells and a belly that began to fill with fluid.

Talia visited a veterinary cardiologist (this for the beagle who had probably never visited a vet in her lifetime). Ultrasound tests gave us very bad news- the right side of Talia's heart was simply not working properly and was impressively enlarged. It was just not able to do its job and thus the fluid was backing up and dispersing in her abdomen. We began a regimen of medications, but nothing helped. The fluid was relentless and eventually interfered with her breathing, though not with her love of chicken nuggets and cheese burgers.

The part of this that sits with me beyond the sadness of losing such a sweet and innocent life is that it was 100% preventable. The massive damage to Talia's heart was due totally to the heartworm infestation. There was no congenital defect, no reason her heart should not have happily pumped for the next 8 years or so. Had Talia been given monthly heartworm preventatives or been treated promptly for the heartworm disease, I would be writing about how happy she was in her new home instead of writing her obituary.

And, so, I am mad. I am mad that Talia is gone, mad that humans don't take responsibility, mad that my best efforts and the resources of a wonderful organization were not enough. Talia won the doggie lottery only to have it taken away before she could cash the check, and that's just not right.

Talia, I know, fared better than many. She got a few months of the good life and her death was humane and peaceful. Soon, I will move my focus to being grateful I could provide these things for her and I will move on to help the next one. But for this little moment in time, well... this is Talia's moment.

Showering without Puppies.

Things have quieted down quite a lot in my bathroom. For the first time in over 3 months, I showered today without "benefit" of puppies.

Since the long night of birthing in October, my bathroom has been delivery room, nursery, infirmary, dispensary and playroom. The floor has long been buried under layers of newspaper and the counters have been cluttered with baby wipes, dewormer, puppy formula, bottles, and cans of puppy food. Mascara? No clue where that is, but here's a syringe for administering medications.

Lately, the toilet paper has usually been shredded and any clothing I left hanging partially out of the laundry basket has been dunked in the water bowl.

The shower, though, that's the thing. There's a whole extra step in the process called the "pre-shower poop patrol" because, well, nobody wants to step out of the shower and into unpleasantness.

Undressing for the shower is different too- lots of help with your pant legs and shoestrings. And while you are finally, blissfully indulging in hot water and soap? Well, pupies are very, very busy hiding your slippers in new spots and plotting ways to reach the clean towel and drag it across the floor.

Today, though, it was just a shower. In, scrub, out with no fan club applauding my reemergence from the steam. The puppies are all adopted into their forever homes and my bathroom is just a bathroom again- a clean one.

The shower was kind of boring.