The puppies have landed.

The puppies are here.  They are underfed.  They are covered in fleas, though not as many fleas as before we gave them a mini, baby-safe flea bath.  (We also found a tick on one of them where the sun don't shine.)  They are probably full of internal parasites.  But that's how it goes with puppies. That's why they're here: to get all dewormed and bug free and non-reproductive before they get adopted.  This is like their spa, you know?

It's also puppy boot camp.  I started training them this evening.  We had a little 5-10 minute session of learning to not be grabby with treats.  They learn quickly.  So excited to see these little guys grow.

The one on the left is Stuart.  The one on the right is Margalo.  (Both named for E.B. White characters in the book Stuart Little.)

and we're back!

Topaz the Poodle(ish)

This is Topaz.  He is a kind, sweet, loving puppy mill survivor.  He is about 5 years old.  He is, to be honest, my most challenging foster so far.  Which is to say that he is remotely challenging, compared to my previous fosters who were absurdly easy.

His biggest difficulty is that, in his desperate attempt to gain human love, he walks very close to my feet, sometimes tripping me, and every so often jumping up when he's on the leash outside.  I suspect he was trained to walk on the leash using treats, so he is expecting to get something if he jumps, but this will fade quickly.

He gets along beautifully with other dogs.  He loves meeting new people (he backs away at first until he realizes they aren't going to hurt him, then he follows them everywhere).  And he was even a total sweetheart with my sister's new kitten...

...whose name is Frankie.

meanwhile II

Daria

These guys are currently, temporarily being fostered at my sister's house, since they needed an emergency foster home.  Stay tuned...

Bart

Charmin

This is Charmin, our new foster dog guest.  She is a Shar Pei mix (she looks to me like a mix between a Shar Pei and a Shiba Inu), who was rescued from a puppy mill.  She is 2 or 3 years old, and was rescued by an organization called Luv4K9s.  As I understand it, she has only been out of the puppy mill for a month or two, and considering this, she is adjusting beautifully!  She's a little distant and uncertain of people reaching for her, but she will take treats from my hand and will let me pet her if we don't startle her.  She is doing very well in the house-- she's calm and laid back, but social with the other dogs.  She loves chewing on toys, and quickly discovered the dog toy basket in the living room.

She is of course available for adoption-- already fixed and up-to-date on shots.  For more information about Luv4K9s or how to adopt Charmin, visit their website.

straydar

Straydar: n. (strā-dahr): The unintentional ability to spot stray or unaccompanied dogs or cats when driving, walking or during one's lunch hour at work, prompting the need to always have a leash and pet treats in the auto. This may also include the ability to have pets brought to one by others who are aware one has this ability. There is no cure once one becomes afflicted with "straydar".

urbandictionary.com

Apparently, that's a thing.  I know, because I seem to have come down with a classic case.  Examine the symptoms and history:

• I suspect I inherited the gene from my dad, who once found a litter of three puppies at the laundromat of our apartment complex when I was 4 or 5.  It was a Saturday morning, I was watching the Smurfs, and my dad walked in with a box of puppies.  I was giddy.  Of course, they ended up being taken "to the pound," but that's how it began.

• My own straydar seems to have lay dormant for most of my life, until I adopted Lucy, a lhasa apso from some friends when they could no longer care for her.  

• When her life ended sooner than it should have years later, my then-boyfriend purchased a puppy from a pet store, over my staunch objections to the likelihood that the puppy came from a puppymill.  Turns out, he was from a classic puppymill, but that's another story for another time.  Regardless, when then-boyfriend dumped me and ever so responsibly realized "wait, I can't take care of a dog!" I won custody.  That is how my beloved Truman came to be mine.

• Years later, I was living with my then-fiance (now husband, Bryan) and Truman, when a frightened little poodle-mix emerged from the woods across the street from our house.  Fate, along with a little human and animal intervention, saw to it that we took her in and cared for her, and eventually, she joined our family too.  Harriet's full story is here.

• I came to realize the full extent of my love for dogs, and my passion for helping them, so I became a volunteer at SICSA, a local organization that is just plain awesome.  

• One day my sister called me, having found a tiny Maltese wandering busy streets and getting honked at.  My sister was leaving town so dropped off the dog with me.  The dog was clearly someone's pet, well cared for, but without a collar and with an unregistered microchip.  But knowing where the dog was found, I used my super-librarian skills, mixed with a little facebook stalking prowess, and tracked down the owners.  They came to pick her up within less than 6 hours of her arrival.

• I fostered two amazing and adorable tiny puppies, Mo and BB, for three weeks.  No sooner had wonderful adoptive homes for them (just this past weekend) do we arrive at the present situation...

• Yesterday.

We were meeting friends for breakfast at a restaurant called Tank's near downtown.  It was raining, and as I pulled up, we saw a little Pomeranian hobbling down the street.  He approached people without fear, but as we got closer, could see he was severely matted and looked worse than Harriet had when we found her.  While Bryan & I were trying to decide what we could do, some awful woman entering Tank's started hounding us about what we were going to do, saying the dog was going to get hit by a car and we had better take her, and of course she couldn't take the dog, but demanded we do something now.  I had just gotten a new car and didn't have a blanket in it yet, so I put the dog in my trunk to avoid flea infestation.  (This sounds bad, but the dog seemed quite comfortable and safe.)  I drove it home, penned him in in the garage with blankets, water, and food, and headed back to breakfast.

He's still in the garage, and I think he's injured, and I've been trying all day to figure out how to get him the care he needs.  I'm still working on this, so I will continue the updates.

P.S. I'm calling him Tank.

UPDATE: After this post, I ended up changing the name of this blog, from "Help for Harriet" to "Straydar."

the babies are here

Ooooh, dear.  I was not prepared for this level of cute.

It's surprising to me that any dog could make Harriet look big, but they've done it.  Mo and BB appear to be some sort of lab mix. Their official names are Michelle and Barbara; all the puppies of the litter were named after presidents or first ladies.  But it felt really awkward calling a dog Barbara.  So we're going with their initials.

Mo (Michelle)

BB (Barbara)

They are supposedly 6 weeks old, but oh my goodness they are tiny and skinny. You can particularly see it in the photo of BB, how boney she is in the hips and ribs.


We were originally supposed to get two puppies from a different litter last week, but that group turned out to possibly have ringworm, so they have to recover before they can be fostered.  Though I'm worried about the fate of those puppies, for our sake these girls were worth the wait.  They're eating a little bit at a time.  Mo can't figure out how to eat puppy kibble so we've been crushing it up and mixing it with water so she'll eat.  They are playful and talkative.

But most of all, they are sleepy. 

The toughest part is keeping them isolated from our other dogs for the first 2 weeks.  Truman wants to sniff them SO badly!

the babies are coming!

Truman is way, crazy excited.  His excitement is because we have laid down vinyl flooring on the wood floor of my home office, and we've put up a playpen with some dog toys, and two stuffed puppies in it.  Truman loves stuffed animals.

He's kind of been freaking out, actually.  But he's getting used to it, which was exactly the point.  Because this week-- hopefully this afternoon-- we are going to be adding two real, live puppies to that playpen.  And Truman will freak out all over again with excitement, but at least he's getting use to the playpen itself before then.

This will be our first fostering experience.  This summer I became a volunteer at SICSA, and through my volunteering I offered to become a foster home (with B's support, of course).  Within a day or two of applying to foster, I was contacted about 11 lab mix puppies (9 weeks old) that are in need of foster homes willing to care for them at least in pairs.  We expect to be meeting them later today.  Let the adventures commence!

Harriet's story

On October 11, 2011, Bryan and I came home from work and, as we were getting out of the car, noticed a little dog sitting on the edge of the woods across the street from our house, watching us.  For a moment, I thought our own little gray dog, Truman, had gotten out, but on second glance I could see this was not our dog.

As I started to approach, she ran back into the woods, clearly not interested in being approached.  I had to leave to go to grad school class, but while I was gone, Bryan-- with the help of some neighbors and their German Shepherd-- heroically rounded up the terrified little dog and caught her.  She was affectionately called Harry, until it was discovered that she was a female, and then we started referring to her as Harriet.

Harriet was horribly matted and flea infested, with no tags or collar.  She seemed shaky and disoriented.  We kept her in our garage with some food and water.  Other neighbors donated some supplies: a dog bed, some food, a collar, a toy.  She was pretty exhausted and timid, but not exactly fearful.  She was gentle and didn't seem averse to being petted, although she seemed equally comfortable hiding in the corner of the garage.

The next morning, she escaped from the garage as we were leaving for work.  We left the door to the garage open in case she wanted to come back for shelter or food or water.  But, that was that.

...Except that when I came home for lunch, there was Harriet, sitting in the yard.  She again ran away when I approached, but again, some kind passers-by helped catch her and we put her back in the garage.  We made a vet appointment for that evening.

The vet discovered that, much to our surprise, she was overall quite healthy.  This little 10 pound dog was not emaciated, as you might expect from a stray dog in her situation.  She was very docile and never showed aggression to anyone caring for her.  Based on her muscles, eyes, and overall body condition, the vet guessed that she was about 5 years old, but that she had been living on her own for at least a month or two.

The biggest problems were a severe flea infestation (easily taken care of) and the condition of her teeth.  She had the teeth of a 20 year old dog.  They were rotting out.  An emergency grooming was scheduled to take care of her matted hair and the awful smell and the the fleas, but 3 of her teeth fell out during the grooming.  Poor Harriet seemed to have never had any dental care whatsoever, which was probably made worse by chewing on sticks and bones while she tried to survive in the woods, causing serious gum damage.  She was at serious risk of infection, which could pose fatal problems if left unattended.  It was estimated to cost between $1200-1500.

This was when I learned that there are not a lot of options for financial help for people who want to help a stray animal.  We were willing to give her up to a rescue organization, but we were also very willing to foster her, and since she was adjusting comfortably to our home, sending her away to a rescue organization felt a little cruel when we were perfectly willing to care for her.  The high cost of surgery would be a big strain for us, but we couldn't find low-cost vet options for care other than vaccines and spaying, and rescue organizations we called were (understandably) unwilling to provide funding assistance to people who weren't already approved foster-families.  Yet, the rescue organizations we found were all desperate for foster families, and her fate with them would be uncertain

Meanwhile, we learned Harriet had an intestinal parasite which required medication.  She continued to recover at our house, getting regular meds.  She was getting along well with our dog, and she made progress every day in becoming more comfortable with us.  At first she was completely unwilling to walk on a leash, but bit by bit, within a couple weeks she was able to walk around the block with us.

We ended up heading to another vet to get a second opinion (even though I adore my usual vet, this other one was a friend of a family member).  They gave us a much lower estimate-- $600-800.  As I began posting updates on Facebook and talking with friends and family about Harriet's situation, people began asking if they could donate to the Harriet fund.

Thus, I awkwardly created this site, to give people the opportunity to contribute to Harriet's immediate medical costs.  She is a sweet, affectionate little dog, and we have come to terms with the fact that she is now a beloved member of our family.  We can happily provide for Harriet's care in the long term; the typical costs of being responsible dog owners are familiar to us.  But the initial cost of finding a dog in the woods who has never been cared for responsibly and catching her up on shots, dewormings, spaying, and dental surgery is more than we were prepared for.  If you are the kind of person who likes to contribute money to things like this, we would graciously appreciate any help lightening the financial burden of our new, very sweet but needy little family member, we would be deeply grateful for your generosity.