Pip is home for the holidays

Pip's new ride

Holiday is in the air allright. I drove to Whole Foods to meet Pip's new dad, Brett with a crate and to pick up some marrow bones for the dogs. The lights are all twinkly and stage is set to lure the crowds into Thanksgiving purchases and pave the way for Christmas. Ok, I went for it, too. I got some Rice Nog and gingerbread cookies.

We are sitting here right now eating Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza in a box like I used to have as a kid and watching 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' It's time for a trip down memory lane, but with new memories.

Brett and Pip

Amber, BeBe, Peanut and Nolan are just a chomping on their marrow bones. Of course, Amber ate all the good stuff out of hers and sat there waiting on something else, something better. She reminds me of me, always working that angle for a better deal. It's so hard not to spoil her.

It took six hours today, but I finally got all the Petfinder, Adopt-A-Pet and other sites updated with the dogs. I added Guido and Spuds to the Texas pages. I am so excited to get them here. I can't wait to see them and hug them, get them all cozy in their own crates with a bone to chew.

This is going to be the best Christmas ever, a season of trying to move past the awful things that happened last summer at Spindletop and look for new beginnings and healing. Amber is ready to go. I can tell she wants to meet her forever family. I wonder who it will be. Will it be a single lady who wants a gentle soulful companion or a nice man like Atticus Finch who would enjoy sitting on the front porch swing with a girl like Amber? Will it be family with kids who want a dog to share their childhood with, like Scout and Jem?

The families are the best part. You just know it when the adoption is right. The dogs tell you. Tonight, for instance, I could tell Pip was done with my part in her life. She gave me a tiny nose to my ear, or a passing nod in dog talk, but I'm thrilled. She is Brett and Jenny's dog now. They are a family. My job is done. We had a long time together, me and Pip.

A happy Pippy Christmas

 When I snapped a couple of photos, the lights just shone around her, like the world was plugged in and Pip's own backdrop. She's made it and is very much loved. I have to hold onto that as there were some sad things today.

A momma dog who looks just like Pip is in the Modesto shelter with 10 babies. The chances are slim they'll all make it out alive. The three dogs who were living by the river near Sacramento and found by a deaf boy were all shot to death by a cop. While driving to Whole Foods, a tiny dog, maybe a little Papillon was running back and forth across the busy four lane highway. I nearly had a wreck trying to find him, but he dashed terrified down a dirt road and disappeared. I am hoping he had a home down that road.

Those are the memories which keep me awake. We are living in a horrible time. There are so many unwanted animals and so much sadness. In the movie, Atticus shoots a mad dog with the children and Cal watching. I'd forgotten about that part. I'll go down to BeBe's house in a minute and finish 'To Kill a Mockingbird' with her.

Tomorrow, we have a date to watch 'Gone With the Wind.' AMC is doing it up right this Thanksgiving with the movies. I wonder if the people who run AMC have dogs. They must, because the movies they're airing are dog watching movies. I can't imagine watching a movie without the companionship of animals. They're just better.

Monday morning coming down

Last weekend was typical of rescue life. After transporting Quentin all the way from Lodi, getting him settled in his new home with mom Tara, new crate, starting a new raw diet, learning the Kong, attending his first Better Way Dog Training class with Bob Gutierrez, Tara's landlord changes his mind about her having a pet.

Quentin fitting in

In tears, Tara called to say she didn't think it was going to be possible to keep Quentin. Now, even though we knew Quentin was in the perfect place for him, Reunion Rescue has a lifelong returns policy. We got on the horn and called out the troups. Jess and Jaime who're longtime Reunion adopters offered to foster Quentin while we seek that perfect home.

I knew exactly what Tara was experiencing. Inside, we are all that little girl with a mean man trying to take away the puppy. Who hasn't been there? Reunion has a saying, 'always walk out with the dog.' Here was an opportunity to put those words to work.

Since Quentin was now situated temporarily, we got busy again with the very complicated process of trying to ship Spuds, our blind boy, from Lodi here to Reunion Rescue No-Kill Refuge where we can treat his joint issues and eyes with raw diet and homeopathy. What the heck, we had one option with On Wings of Care who would fly Spuds, but with only Spuds and another dog, the cost of fuel between $1800 and $2000. We made a decision on the fly to go ahead and bring Guido, too. We are still looking for other dogs needing transport either from California to Texas or back to California from Texas. Each passenger lowers the cost which is split according to how many dogs are flown.

Spuds and his ball getting ready for Texas!

I called Bonny at On Wings of Care and told her to go ahead and pencil us in. By the way, I hadn't cleared it with my significant other, Scott, but figured I'd 'wing' it...literally operating on a wing and a prayer. I have learned over the years in rescue to just try and do the next right thing and we'll be carried. It always happens that way.

After all this was settled, I sat down with Scott and made him a proposition. Even though we're operating on overload right now, literally a two bedroom house operating as a de-facto shelter with no big money grants and free Toyotas...I drive an old '98 Jeep Cherokee that holds two crates on a good day. It was truly a hard sell.

Guido's going to Texas!

I pitched it like this. Give me two days to try and make it work with Spuds and Guido. If it's too much and I can't pull it off, I'll either board Guido or find a foster home. He's a mush-melon of a staffie bully boy and very easy, just wanting to sit around and cuddle.

I can't believe it, but Scott caved in. I was honest about something else, too. I've been hoarding Amber. After what happened with Stella dying at Spindletop and all the horror surrounding the raid, Amber has been my little rock. We have held onto each other and made it through a terrible time. I haven't wanted to give her up. In fact, the thought of adopting Amber makes me cry. It's selfish on my part and against what rescue is truly about. She needs her own home and her own people. It is wrong of me to try and keep her.

Pip's new bed

So, I promised Scott I would revamp Amber's adoption link and really start trying to find her that perfect home. After this heart to heart talk, two things happened.

First, Brett who's fostering to adopt Pip with significant other, Jenny, texted me a photograph of Pip in her own home on her brand new plush dog bed. Pip was with me for four years and made it out of three very high kill shelters. She is truly a survivor and proof that there is a perfect home for every dog if we just believe.

The next thing blew my socks off. Tara called. She had been cuddling on her sofa with Quentin for 6 hours petting him and crying. In San Francisco, luckily, there is huge support for tenants and their companion animals. Tara had been doing her research and is securing documentation to keep Quentin. She asked if she could have one more week with him to try and make this happen.

Amber's grand prize

Wow. All I can say is, wow. These events all pretty much happened without my doing. It's hard in my world to step back and let nature take its course, but geez, Louise, sometimes it really does work.

BeBe, by the way got Pip's old digs and has her own house with cable tv. We watched 'The Color Purple' Saturday night since Pit Bulls and Parolees were on Thanksgiving holiday. It's good to take the time to sit down like a normal person with their dog and just watch a tearjerker old movie. Wednesday, we've got a date to watch Gone With the Wind. BeBe has never seen it and I think she's really gonna like Prissy. I wish she was dog friendly so Amber could join us in her red satin-teen collar like Mammy's scarlet red petticoat, but we'll have to try that experiment another time.

Buster and octopus

Before I could explode, I got a sweet letter from Ken and Steaven who recently adopted Buster with a photo of Buster and his baby octopus. It keeps getting better and better.

I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. I am really blessed to have these beautiful creatures in my life and a purpose. I am grateful that Spuds and Guido will be joining us. I'm happy that Nolan is getting better every day, running in the yard. Peanut got BeBe's old crate spot and he seems a little more settled in his own protected area.

Last night, I broke out the Kong donation box I'd been attempting to have a half-ass raffle giveaway, and gave the prizes to Amber, Peanut and BeBe. They acted like they'd won the lotto, but the big winner is me.

End of the rope and a silver lining...

Yesterday should have been one of the happiest days in Reunion Rescue's rocky past, but it turned into a day from hell.

Tara has entered our foster to adopt program after falling in love with William who's since been renamed Quentin. He is named for 'The Sound and the Fury" Quentin Compson, As complex as a Faulkner character, our Quentin had a rough start yesterday.

 He made the first leg to meet Tara and our in-house APBT advocate, Adena. First stop was a bath as Quentin has been living out in the country and needed a bit of city-fying.

After arriving in San Francisco, it was discovered Quentin only prefers wire kennels, so yet another trip to the pet store last night to purchase another kennel, dog bed, more food and enticing treats to encourage Quentin to love his new crate and begin serious Kong training.

Our program insures with a good Kong training, any dog can get a full upper-body workout in his crate while mom or dad is otherwise occupied. Then, pup takes a nice long nap until the whistle blows.

Tara took Quentin on two long jogs yesterday afternoon and evening to try and tucker him out. Our boy is going to require some exercise. He is one of those boys who needs to run! Unfortunately, torrential downpours in San Francisco put a bit of a damper on things, but Tara and Quentin trudged ahead. With one minor incident involving a couple having an argument, Quentin remained strong even though as a timid boy, he was frightened by the episode.

Lots of Emergency Australian Bush Flower Essences will be helping Quentin make this big huge transition from country life to city living. We as humans understand these things, but imagine what it must be like for a dog who was nearly starved to death, dragged behind a car, thrown on a bar-b-que grill while burning and then winding up at the worst hellhole on earth, Stockton Animal Control.

Quentin is going to do just fine. It took some work, but an exhausted Tara got him into his new crate last night for his first night in a real home, in a real house, in the big city.

Jump to present....Quentin made it through his first big night. Tara just called and he slept through the night in his wire kennel. He's eating and learning Kong and digesting the sights, sounds and smells of the beautiful city by the bay.

I can finally take a deep breath and know that things might just work out. Quentin is enrolled for his first Better Way Dog Training class tomorrow morning with the best dog trainer in the world, Bob Gutierrez. Bob is the secret reason Reunion Rescue lays claim to having 'the friendliest pit bulls in the world.'

Mom Tara and Quentin

So I'm off now to walk Pip and get her ready for her first night in her new home with Brett and Jenny. Pip has been with me four years and has her own chapter in Pit Bull Nation, been through three high kill shelters and lived to tell about it.

There is a big silver lining in our clouds today.

Buster at the beach

Buster is one of those dogs whose story is so common in rescue work. Buster and his 8 siblings were pulled with their mom almost two years ago in Bakersfield. Bakersfield KCAC is one of the highest kill shelters in the nation.

Buster and his family were found abandoned on S Street, one of the roughest areas in town. They wound up at the county shelter whose intake is 500 animals a week. Their chances were slim to non-existent.

Momma Sadie

Somehow we saw them and worked with HALT Rescue to get them to safety. Shane and family stepped up to foster and took on more than they could possibly have ever imagined. The puppies were only 3 weeks old, but mom, renamed Sadie, was unbelievably trusting for a dog from the mean streets.

They were fostered in the beginning at Shane's place of business where an assembly line was set up to wash the puppies. They smelled so badly, they had to be run through the system twice. Sadie got a spa treatment, a rarity for a dog like Sadie.

Seven of the puppies were placed over the next few months, but Buster and his brother, now Siesel, were overlooked. Buster was nicknamed 'Shy Guy' due to his low key manner.

Amazingly, Sadie was adopted by the foster family and now lives in the lap of luxury. Siesel and Buster took a little bit longer. After boarding Siesel for several months, he was adopted by longtime Reunion Rescue member, Vanessa and her husband Patrick. Siesel is adopted brother to Peugeot, their female pittie.

Buster was boarded for months and months. He was strangely not being noticed, something that continues to happen in rescue. Buster is low key, loves people, loves kids, great with all dogs and gets along with cats! With all those wonderful attributes, he just couldn't find a home.

Benny at the beach

There was a reason. Steaven and Ken adopted Benny from Reunion Rescue in early 2002. Benny's story was another one of those rescue stories. He was on death row at SFACC with his sister at four months. The SFSPCA pulled her and left Benny all alone. A shy dog anyway, Benny regressed, lonely and afraid. He knew he was unwanted and just waiting to die.

At that time, Reunion Rescue placed holds on all available pit mixes at SFACC to keep them from being put to sleep. Benny didn't know that, though. We pulled him at the last minute and he went into foster care. We were at an adoption event when Steaven and Ken first met Benny. It was love at first sight and after entering the Reunion Rescue foster to adopt program, they took Benny home.

Benny was always a shy dog, but Steaven and Ken worked hard to teach Benny not to be afraid to walk down the sidewalk and how to go to the dog park. Benny passed away after a long and much loved life.

Steaven just happened to be looking at the dogs for adoption and saw a posting for four puppies. What do you know? These were four of Sadie's pups, but on an old site. All the pups had been adopted except for Buster and Buster was no longer a puppy. He'll be two soon.

They had been thinking about a puppy, but Buster had been waiting for them. How were we to ever have known this was the plan? Steaven and Ken drove the two hour journey to meet Buster where we had him boarded. It was a match!

Buster has fit right in. He's got the right amount of shyness without being too timid. He has his own personality, but also has a little touch of Benny in him. It was as if Benny was directing this from his special place in heaven. I really believe, and so do Ken and Steaven, that Buster has Benny's seal of approval. That's how it works with dogs, you know.

Steaven and Ken took Buster for a vacation at Stinson Beach, probably the closest place to heaven on earth. He looks so happy playing in the surf and sand.

Dogs help us move through the hard things in life. What's more precious than watching a smiling dog on the beach....

"religion is the smile on a dog...

I'm not aware of too many things 

I know what I know, 

if you know what I mean...."

Buster as a little puppy

Vet's Toxic Email to Girl

We have a local vet around the corner who doesn't plain get it. This morning, I got an email from the office reminding me to bring Girl in for the following:

According to our records Girl is now due for a wellness exam. 

We show Girl is due for the following treatments:

11-12         0204    Distemper
11-12         0205    Parvo
11-12         0206    Rabies
11-12         0207    Lepto
11-12         0208    Bordatella
11-12         0416    Stool Check
11-12         0422    Heartworm Test

I was astounded. The only answer I could come up with and answered with was 'are you kidding me?' 

What is going on? Girl is almost 15 years old and doing great. The last time she went to this particular vet was for blood work. According to the vet, Girl was dying and could not be helped. 'Get ready to say goodbye,' was his advice.

Please don't vaccinate me!

Well, she certainly isn't going to be helped with all those vaccinations which have been proved to cause cancer and all kinds of other diseases. Girl was treated for her infection by her homeopathic physician and she is thriving and living large...emphasis on living.

What kind of 'doctor' would over-vaccinate a senior dog, one he had written off as dying a few months ago?

Fortunately some states have lightened up on the vaccine laws and allow titers and deferments for senior and ailing animals.

Will Texas ever get there? Hopefully, but when and if these dumb laws are changed, what is this vet going to do? Start to actually learn to heal animals? What a notion.

Until then, Girl and none of the other animals here will be returning to this vet. They would rather live than die an terribly early death caused from too many shots from this doctor.

Dog waitress

Underground cave at Petco Lakeline

Years ago when I was at UT studying film, I had no idea the the waitress job would be my best training. In fact, I am now a dog waitress. I spend a good deal of my time serving nutritious meals to dogs, cats and birds.

We don't have any help, so I'm the busboy, too. Nothing in life is a more profound builder of humility than serving dogs. I've had food, plates, beer, drinks and all kinds of stuff thrown at me by angry drunk customers back in the day. Nothing equals being vomited on by a dog after you've driven all over creation to obtain quality organic free range chicken and beef. You just keep trying and start thinking orthopedic shoes.

Friday, Reunion did a Petco Lakeline event and found out all kinds of interesting things. Petco Lakeline is built on top of miles and miles of underground caves.

Petco also had deer antlers on sale for members. After loading up on Petco paper litter, I splurged and bought each of the in-house rescue dogs a deer antler.

After a couple of obligatory licks, the antlers were totally dissed and lay there by each dog, expensive and ignored.


Being a good dog waitress, I was not going to let them get the better of me. I did what any self-respecting dog waitress would do in a case like this. I went straight to Facebook. After posting on Reunion's rescue page, I got some pretty good advice.

One of the commenters had faced the same problem and tried boiling her deer antlers to coax out smells and make them more attractive to the dogs. That sounded good, so I collected all the antlers, which unsurprisingly, no one seemed to care in the least.

Placing them in a pot on the stove, I took Peanut outside to throw the ball. Naturally, I forgot about the antlers and returned to a house full of smoke and a pot full of burned deer antlers. Once again, I've failed miserably as a dog waitress.

On the upside, though, it's a job you can't seem to get fired from. No benefits and tips are laughable. You can forget about any kind of paycheck and this job really seems to age you.

Good girls get the cookies

I learned an expensive and good lesson from BeBe the other day. People don't give you cookies if you misbehave. Hmmm. For years I've been claiming it's no accident I rescue pit bulls.

I've never been one to back down over things that matter to me. There's an old saying, 'if you stop to fight with every barking dog, you'll never get to town.' That has come back around to bite me in the ass more than a couple of times. I guess the trick is to qualify what really matters.

Peanut sits for a cookie!

So how can I expect BeBe and the other dogs to behave, not bark, sit pretty and be nice without a reward? They all want a cookie. And...the nice girls get the cookies. A little secret, I call them all girls. Little Peanut from Alvin who was salvaged from the Spindletop raid had the hardest time learning a sit, but today he became a man. Today, Peanut offered his first sit for a cookie. Huge.

Peanut has the slim build of a habitual criminal. You know, the guys you see in prison, somebody's punk, like a Barney Fife who just fell in with the wrong crowd. Peanut came here very stressed out. He'd survived the high kill animal control in Alvin only to be pulled by Leah Purcell of Spindletop under Reunion Rescue's 501(c)(3). Slight problem, Reunion didn't even know until long after the raid and Peanut, then known as Feo, was being held at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds by the authorities.

Since I'd written the initial story about Feo, I felt responsible for him. After all, he was a Reunion dog. Full here with the defacto no kill shelter we had to set up with limited resources, Feo was placed in boarding.

Angel, now Hub, was adopted by a longtime Reunion adopter who has relocated to Minnesota which opened up a spot for Feo. When Feo arrived, he was a total mess. He vomited everything and has terrible diarrhea. This went on for a couple of months. After several recent horror stories with conventional vets, I was certainly reticent to subject poor Feo to a battery of tests and what I knew they'd prescribe, nasty ass Metronidazole (Flagyl) which would leave him certainly worse for wear in the long run.

I held true to what I've learned homeopathically and started Peanut on a quality kibble diet, even though all the rescued cats and dogs here at the sanctuary are fed organic raw. I knew the jump to raw diet would stress his system and patience would win in the end.

It took a few weeks and slowly Peanut was transitioned to raw. First he, like Nolan, started on chicken necks and a beef blend, but eventually, he was chomping down on a chicken quarter like the best of them. Little narrow-ass Peanut had won. I knew he was truly on the road to recovery.

I also knew that Peanut would be a hard sell on the sit. For weeks, I could only get one sit per session from him, truly a half-ass sit, if you get my drift, by use of the tennis ball. Peanut is a ball freak. Loves to fetch.

He was not food oriented for obvious reasons. Who knows what and when he was eating at Spindletop and his gastro-intestinal problems dogging him from place to place had been very hard on his little system. Food was not Peanut's friend. He needed time and good nourishment on a steady basis to learn that food was a good thing.

Also, and very importantly, Peanut had probably never even seen a cookie. I had to remember this. Here is a poor boy whose system has been ravaged by bad food and some crazy lady waving more of it in his face saying, 'sit' which sounds like something in German. Poor baby.

But, today, he made the final step. Peanut sat for a cookie. And sat for another cookie. And again and again and again. I was ecstatic. I had to stop, because I knew I'd give him an upset stomach if I kept it up. Peaunut is a winner. He is going to be a wonderful pet someday when he learns he can trust people. I don't blame him for being a little slow to believe. I'm still trying to learn to trust people.

I'm also learning to be a good girl since good girls get the cookies in life. It works on people, too.