All under one rooftop....Reunion No Kill finally a reality!

Amber getting down on Kong

It's been a long, long time since I was able to wake up in the morning with a song in my heart. I am very grateful for all the Reunion Rescue dogs living great lives and the ones who haven't found their homes yet, living a good life at Reunion Rescue No Kill Refuge, the only raw feeding holistic no kill pit bull shelter in the world.

It ain't perfect yet, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was. For years, we've boarded our Texas and California dogs while thinking we just were not set up to be a shelter. The Texas dogs were boarded at Spindletop which was raided last summer. We made four trips to Conroe to get some of our dogs back, but Stella was killed with 37 others in the Morgan Building. Many other dogs are still missing and presumed dead.


Just as the dust was settling over the Spindletop tragedy, we began making plans to bring our three remaining California dogs which were being boarded in Lodi. What's three more, right? Once you've set your mind to run a sanctuary, it's really not that hard.

BeBe at the lake

We are set up here on the river outside Austin, Texas to comfortably house these animals. Each of these dogs came from nasty beginnings.

Amber and Stella were butchered and noosed in a hot Houston vacant lot. Stella still had blood running down her head when she was found and we raised money to board them at Spindletop.

BeBe doing some Christmas shopping

BeBe burying her Kong

BeBe, formerly known as Batgirl, was beaten severely with a baseball bat and scheduled to die in Austin.

Merry Christmas from Nolan

Nolan was starved nearly to death outside Dallas and on his way to Spindletop when news of the raid and seizure hit. Luckily, his transporter turned the car around, but not before Leah Purcell pocketed over a thousand dollars which had been raised for his care. Heartworm positive and down to 70 pounds, this beautiful Great Dane/American Bulldog mix is thriving at Reunion on a raw diet and lots of sunshine and exercise. He's even well enough to finally be neutered for Christmas.

Peanut and Scott

Peanut was named 'Feo' and pulled illegally by Purcell from city of Alvin shelter last December. It's anyone's guess how much money she made off this dog. Since The American Pit Bull Examiner covered his story in the first place, Reunion felt a kinship with Peanut, so here he is. Peanut had a lot of fearful problems he's working on and goes to work with Scott these days. Along with his herbal remedy and raw diet, Peanut's 'job' has turned out to be the very best medicine.

Peanut and Scott..just a job

Angel overcame his abuse from Spindletop so quickly, he was able to join Murmur and Barbara in Minnesota where he's now called Hub and enjoying a Dickinson life in a small quaint town.

Our sweet brave William

William was one of the three left boarding in California. There was a lot of rumor and innuendo about William, but he is proving them all wrong. He came from the hellhole Stockton shelter after being burned, starved and drug behind a truck.

He was transported all the way to Texas with Guido and Kingston, a.k.a. King James/Spuds, and is thriving in a fab foster home. He is living the high life in a doggy day care Disneyland, eating a raw diet and happy for the first time in his whole life.

Guido Sarducci on the trail

Guido, from Wasco, and Kingston from Marin Humane, who is blind, arrived quite obese. They've been under-exercised and over-crated. Although Reunion is all about the crate as it provides a safe and confidence inspiring environment, mimicking the wild instinct, the crate is certainly not intended to be utilized 24/7. Kingston's muzzle was scarred and covered in dried bloodied marks which look as if he'd been stressed from over-crating.

Guido and Kingston were a very hard sell on the raw. Who knows what these two have been eating? We've tried just about everything from raw ground chicken blend to ground beef blend, chicken livers, yes...even kibble...but nada. I tried boiled chicken spiked with cottage cheese and even some cheddar flavored 'Easy Cheese' to no avail.

Kingston hoofing it the natural way

This morning we had a major breakthrough. Green tripe is the daily blue plate special for these two persnickety customers. First, I filled a couple of empty marrow bones with tripe and when that was snarfed down, filled a couple of big Kongs. It was a winner! Finally, getting some raw meat into these two boys. From experience, I know it's all gonna be easy pickings from here on in. Kingston's face is healing with new pink skin growth. Both these boys have relaxed and begun to settle in very nicely.

I've not had the time to sit down and write an update on these guys. Each day, I try to get each dog a nice nature hike. It's amazing to see these precious dogs doing what dogs are supposed to do. They are enjoying good healthy diets filled with ingredients their bodies were created to eat. They are exercising and learning to love the sounds of wild birds and lizards scurrying through the brush, the smells of browning leaves and sound of flowing fresh water creeks. They feel the freedom of warm sunshine on their happy faces and are slowly learning that tomorrow is another day and holds something new and fresh, an adventure. We are learning this together, that this sad old world can really be a happy place if we just put one foot in front of the other and believe.

The herbal pit bull

Every day, I get hundreds of emails regarding pit bulls and other animals with or without issues being put to sleep. To somebody like myself, this news is sheer insanity! Imagine hearing the same issues over and over and over with remedy and solutions so close within reach.

Let's take the story of BeBe for instance. BeBe was previously Batgirl, beaten severely with a baseball bat  and sentenced to die at Town Lake Shelter in Austin.

I adopted her personally, not being a partner with Town Lake now known as Austin Animal Center. At the time, Reunion was full and I had to board BeBe at what I believed to be a reputable pit bull facility, Spindletop.

A year and a half later, Spindletop was raided and I was lucky enough to get BeBe back. She was ten times worse than the dog I'd entrusted to them.

I've long been using the products from Robert McDowell Herbal Treatments to support various issues in the dogs and cats we've rescued over the years. We've treated issues from kidney failure to parasites with great success. It finally dawned on me to try herbal support for behavioral issues.

One thing Reunion Rescue does with every pulled animal is an immediate detox. Most domestic pets are extremely over-vaccinated. The longer I am involved with pulling these shelter animals, the more I'm convinced that most if not all problems stem from vaccine. What the average Joe doesn't know is a domestic pet who's received one vaccine has a 1 in 800,000 chance of contracting rabies. Never in history has rabies shown up in a pet who's received two vaccines. Then why on earth are we vaccinating our pets year after year after year? Again, insanity!

I'd learned Bebe's herbal tinctures had been thrown out by the proprietress of Spindletop, so when BeBe arrived here at Reunion Rescue No Kill Refuge, she went through a complete detox and began on Australian Bush Flower Essences Emergency.

Vicente and Guido naptime

I contacted the wonderful people at Robert McDowell Herbal Treatments who gave BeBe remedy and tincture specific to her needs. Along with a healthy raw meat diet, BeBe slowly, but surely began to change.

BeBe sustained severe damage to her head from the baseball bat beatings. In addition, we'd learned she had been abused and kicked repeatedly in her head with steel toed working boots. She suffered from headaches and her vision in the left eye had been compromised.

In addition to her daily tincture, she was dosed homeopathically. The remedy selected for BeBe worked! She was pain free in a little over a week and the homeopathy remedy was halted.

When BeBe arrived here, she couldn't sleep through the night. She woke up with night terrors and would screech over and over until she could be calmed enough to resume her sleep. Today's BeBe is a totally different dog. She smiles. She is a happy dog. She loves to play and dig. She loves her chews. She loves training and to sit for her cookie.

Imagine if pet owners used flower essences for their 'problem' pets. Imagine if the nation's shelters were to simply drop some Australian Bush Emergency essences into the daily water bowl. The shelter animals would be calm and not barking hysterically when potential adopters walk through the kennels.

More pet owners would keep their pets. Shelter adoptions would increase.

BeBe's problems were some of the worst I've encountered in all my years in rescue. There were some moments when I thought BeBe was not going to ever get better. She taught me to not give up on her and what a blessing she has been. She has taught me a lot about dogs, about animal behavior and mostly about love.

Peanut, William and Guido are also receiving daily tinctures from Robert McDowell. Although their problems were not nearly so severe as BeBe's, they each needed something to help their confidence and  help them smoothly segue into the life of just being dogs.

Each day, I'm more and more amazed at the sparkle I'm seeing in the eyes of these animals. One of the main complaints I hear is the old 'I don't have the time for ....' routine. I have a refuge full of pit bulls, each crated with a job to do and routine yard time each day. I've spent the greater part of my rescue life trying to explain to people their dogs want to be with them, not sequestered out in the backyard.

None of the dogs here at Reunion Rescue No Kill Refuge are 'problem' dogs. After a couple of days on raw meat diet, some herbal support and detox, every dog has settled into a routine. In fact, dogs which had come to me severely over-crated and stressed, run to get inside their crates! The reason is because they have a job to do in the crate.

Each time a dog returns to his or her crate, there is something new and fun to do. Whether it's a frozen marrow bone or one which has been re-frozen with cottage cheese and pumpkin, a rawhide or weiner-stuffed Kong, there is a surprise waiting for them.

They feel safe and confident in their crates and to most of these dogs, this is quite a foreign experience. These dogs have been mistreated and abused. We've tried to simulate the wild as much as possible through diet and habitat, but mostly, first and foremost, we let them each know they are extremely special and very much loved beings.

Most of the pets people contact me about are not such severe abuse cases, but simply dogs who once past the puppy stage, have become bored and problematic for their stressed owners. The very easy and simple resources on our website can fix any dog.

Learning from BeBe

BeBe...what does my future hold?

Most every day now I get up to the rowly sounding grumblings of BeBe when her herbs wear off around 6 a.m. Remembering the good old days when I slept in till 7 or 7:30, I roll out of bed to let BeBe out and make up her herbal meatball.

BeBe is the dog who started the whole Spindletop saga with me and Reunion Rescue. BeBe used to be Batgirl from Town Lake here in Austin before it become the Austin Animal Center. The only place I could find on short notice to board and rehab her was Spindletop Refuge. It was too good to be true. Way too too good to be true.

"Spindletop Refuge's mission has been since 1985 to provide a safe haven for abandoned, neglected, or abused American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, Rottweilers as well as a number of mixed breed dogs. Spindletop Refuge is a no kill facility for adoptable dogs and promotes spaying and neutering of all pets. We do not operate with spay/neuter contracts all dogs are spayed and neutered prior to adoption. Spindletop Refuge gives the highest quality of care to all of our orphans and has strict adoption protocols. Spindletop Refuge also promotes breed education, owner responsibility, dog safety, and proper training for all dogs, as well as population control by spaying and neutering. Spindletop Refuge works with national breed organizations as the contact for the National American Pit Bull Association. Spindletop Refuge also promotes the fight against Breed Specific Legistlation and has been fighting the war against breed mis-identification and BSL since 1985."

Over the next year and a half, I became close with Leah Purcell, the proprietress of Spindletop Refuge and Rescue. I believed in Leah and her operation wholeheartedly. In fact, I placed several other dogs in her care and recommended her facility to others across the United States.

Two of the dogs placed into Leah's care were Amber and Stella who'd been found by a BARC volunteer abandoned and noosed to a chain link fence in a vacant lot during the hottest part of the summer. Stella's ears had been cruelly butchered off and she had blood running down the sides of her face and neck. One would think that sort of torture would be the worst of it, but worse was yet to come. Stella was killed in the Morgan Building with 37 other dogs victims of heatstroke.

If anyone has ever seen a dog suffering from heatstroke, it's not a quiet matter. The thought of 38 screeching dogs is hard to imagine. I wake up at the crack of dawn to one yowly girl, so almost 40 screaming animals is almost too much to conceive. 

In a roundabout way, what I'm trying to get at is this. Every time I start to resent waking up to BeBe's noisy alarm and her setting the others off like a crazy zoo, I have to remind myself to be grateful she is alive. 

I come downstairs and let her go outside. I stop by and pet Amber who is still alive and here with me. When I look into her eyes, I always think of Stella. I missed the opportunity to pet her and get to know her. There is a sadness in Amber. Dogs know. She knows her friend is dead. My job now is to care for her and make certain her life is happy, to put the spark back into her eyes. 

Amber has a star on her head, some scarring from some unknown horror in her past. BeBe has fence fighting marks along her own muzzle and head. Nolan is still trying to gain weight from being almost starved to death and Peanut who somebody had named 'ugly' in Spanish is still trying to learn not to be afraid. 

What happened to these dogs? Their awful stories did not start at Spindletop. Whatever happened to them and the others who wound up at Spindletop is a mystery, but something we must all be held accountable for. What is going on in our country that there are so many abused animals? When did it become allright for millions of animals to be killed in shelters because there are too many of them? We did that. We are the reason there are too many animals, so many that we cannot prosecute animal abuse properly and so many that mass death becomes the norm...becomes acceptable.

What needs to be done so that animals like BeBe, Amber, Stella, Nolan and Peanut do not wind up at places like Spindletop? What can I do to help change the tide? 

I have made BeBe a promise. She is so messed up, much worse than the dog I entrusted to Spindletop. Being crated 24/7 does that to an animal. She has been driven insane. I am watching her and waiting for the answer to help her. I know it will come. We are on a journey together, BeBe and myself. I'll be honest, I lose my temper with her. She can be trying at times. When I do, I apologize. I actually say, "I'm sorry, BeBe. I'm just a person. I am not a dog trainer." She'll look up at me like she's saying, "I understand. You're only human."

We have a relationship, BeBe and me. We are two and we are strong. I am really blessed to have her in my life. She is also a very silly girl. Sometimes, I call her by her other nickname, Bambi, like an exotic dancer. Today, when we were playing ball, and there is a very specific way to play ball with BeBe-Bambi. You throw the tennis ball and she prances after it, bouncing her butt across the yard joyfully and very un-gracefully. 

When she retrieves the ball, game's on. I am then to try and get the ball from her. Everything you ever learned about training and proper game play with pit bulls is out the window with BeBe. The main exercise she gets is working to move her body just out of reach so you can't grab her. In fact, we both get a workout with this routine. 

When she's ready, she allows me to grab her by the haunches which takes both hands. I hang onto her with my right arm and manipulate her head with my right hand while trying to unhook the ball from her  clamped down jaw. She's nailed that ball with her canine so that it's near impossible to dislodge. More exercise for me. 

We do this over and over again. It's certainly not training in any form or fashion, but it works for us. For those playtimes in the yard, BeBe and I are happy together. There is no past, no trauma. There is no Spindletop for either of us, no guilt. There is no death row for her or a person hitting her on the head with a baseball bat. 

There is just BeBe and me and I have to believe this is no coincidence. She is here to learn something from me and I am to learn something from her. What that is has no time limit or definition. I'm hoping we are going to learn how to get through life, the hurdles, the hardships, the heartbreaks and also the happy times. 

I have wanted for so long to have my own refuge and was unable to. I couldn't seem to talk my husband into allowing us to build one here and certainly couldn't seem to raise the necessary money to build it. 

The raid at Spindletop changed that. Even without funding, I had to find a place to put these dogs. For now, we are very impromptu with regulated crating and lots of yard and ball time. It took a horrible tragedy to make it happen. I'm very sad, but must look forward and be strong for the dogs. BeBe will not let me shirk even a little bit. She expects a lot from me and that is just what I need. I am learning from BeBe.