The search begins

Enough time has passed since we had to put Herschel down that I’ve finally decided I’m ready to adopt a shelter dog. Leslie has begrudgingly agreed. As long as the dog doesn’t eat Little Man, her skittish cat, that is. My guess is that she will learn to love him or her just as she did Herschel.

I’ve had my eye on one in particular at Southern Hope. I figured if she was still there when I got back from vacation I’d take her home. When I looked for her today, I saw this:

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit disappointed but the bottom line is that she found a home. So my search begins in earnest for my dog. Not to replace Herschel. But to give a home to a dog that desperately needs it. A dog that will snuggle with Emma at night. A dog that will protect her from the monsters under the bed. A dog that will walk with her to the bus stop. A dog that will wait anxiously for her to get home.

My dog is out there. And so the search begins to find her.

People baffle me

As a general rule, I don’t want to hear about how the dogs arrived at the shelter. But when I walked in today I didn’t have a choice. One of the shelter employees saw me playing with a puppy in her cage and told me the story. Evidently an overwhelmed mother holding several babies at the park was kicking her puppy. A park-goer witnessed the abuse and took the dog away. This guy is my hero. Anyway, the puppy didn’t seem overtly traumatized by the abuse. He was a normal, playful, lovable dog. I’m sure his stay here will be a brief one. As opposed to the mothers stay in hell, which will be for all of eternity.

Every dog has a story

Unfortunately, many of them don’t have a happy ending. This one does. Tom and Jerry are brothers. They were found in a dumpster behind a shopping mall. The first time I walked into Tom’s cage, he backed up and made a low growling noise. It was so low it didn’t register and I continued to slowly inch forward. I put out my hand for him to sniff and he lunged for it. He could have bitten me if he’d wanted to but this was clearly a warning. That day, he never let me get close enough to put a leash on. I gave him a treat and left him alone.



Whatever traumatic events had happened to Tom in the past had been done by a male. Because there are few, if any, male volunteers or employees at the shelter, he wasn’t getting the rehabilitation he needed.

Over the next several weeks, we worked together often and he let me get progressively closer. Eventually I was able to walk him. One time he even rolled on his back, the most submissive position, and let me rub his belly. I felt like we were making progress and he was on his way to being adoptable.

But just when I thought we were getting somewhere I came in one day and he wouldn’t let me get near him. We were back to square one. Tom and Jerry stayed for months. The shelter just wasn’t equipped to handle a dog with Tom’s issues.

Nobody at the shelter gave up on them and recently that commitment paid off. An animal sanctuary near Seattle has accepted both Tom and Jerry. Pasado's Safe Haven is home to hundreds of dogs, cats, cows, chickens, ducks, goats, turkeys, pigs, and donkeys. Most arrive from abuse or neglect and now live out their lives in peace.



The boys live in a real "house" with their very own personal caretaker. No more glass doors, no more gawking strangers, no more boredom and no more sitting in a shelter waiting to be adopted. Tom and Jerry will have 24 hour a day care and guidance.



This story has a happy ending. But so many don’t. If you know someone who is thinking about breeding their dogs, remind them of the tens of thousands of shelter dogs. The world doesn’t need any more animals. It needs to find good homes for the ones it already has.

Some birds weren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.

Although the title of this post is from The Shawshank Redemption, the story is from Good Will Hunting. There’s a great scene where Ben Affleck’s character Chuckie tells Matt Damon’s character Will that he’s wasting his god given talent by working a dead end job in a nothing town. Chuckie says that every morning when he comes to pick Will up, he hopes that he won’t be there; that he will have moved on to something bigger and somewhere better. At the end of the movie, Chuckie pulls up at Will’s house to pick him up for work. He honks the horn and then knocks on the door thinking that Will overslept. Chuckie peers inside the window and sees the empty room, all of Will’s belongings gone. Chuckie smiles, happy for his friend but also a bit sad knowing that his world will be that much more drab without him.

That’s how I feel every time I enter the shelter. I look forward to seeing the dogs that I’ve connected with week after week but hope that they are gone; sleeping soundly in the beds of little boys and girls, heads nuzzled on warm over-stuffed pillows. Some place better.

Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing the same faces over and over again. This is one of my favorites, Fonzie. Today when he saw me, he jumped up and down, dancing and howling. He definitely remembers me. I went into his cage and immediately hugged him. Fonzie couldn’t get close enough to me and nearly knocked me over. I quickly got him out of his cage. I can’t imagine the amount of stress it causes him to be in there hearing the other dogs barking on and off most of the day. I assume it’s like being in jail, having to sleep with one eye open. Some of the dogs, like Fonzie, have so much energy that it is in many ways a crime to lock them up.

As soon as he got outside and took care of business, we sprinted down the street. This allowed him the rare opportunity to stretch his legs, feel the wind on his fur and enjoy, if only for a little while, a sense of freedom. Upon returning from the walk, I gave him a treat and put him back in his cage. I told him that I would come back to play with him before I left. If there are no other volunteers at the shelter, like today, it takes me about an hour and a half to walk all of the dogs. I usually spend another 30 minutes going into their cages to play or simply rub bellies.

As promised, I returned to Fonzie’s cage before I left to play a strenuous game of tug of war. After a while, I closed the cage and said goodbye. I mindlessly told him that I would “see you later” but had to catch myself. The truth is that next week I hope that he won’t be there. And I will smile, happy for my friend, but also a little sad knowing that my world will be that much more drab without him.