Smokestik Contest! Show your compassion for animals....win an electronic cigarette and more!!!!

[lorikay13]

Hi gang! I'll try and keep this short and simple so we can get on with the fun!!!.....here are the rules:

#1 Anyone can enter who is a member of ECF
#2 ONE post per person.....NO cross talk. That means ONE post per person and no comments that are not a contest entry. This is because nonentry posts screw up the random genorater
#3 Your post may consist of the following topics:
a) a story about an animal that you personally rescued who later became a part of your family
b) a story about effort that you put forth helping to rescue animals even if you do not live with one.
Pictures are welcome but not mandatory.
#4 Winners will be picked by a random drawing. You may or may not get the proof of randomness since I tend to get excited and forget the screen shots...
#5 If a winner has already won a SmokeStik prize in the past.....you may choose another contestant to receive your prize. If you choose that your recipient be kept annonymous it will be strictly honored.

We will let the contest run for two weeks....the number of prizes will go up depending on the number of entries.....honestly....I'm not sure what the prizes will be...LOL...but the regular crew here can tell you you won't be disappointed. For certain there will be a PitBull kit or two....and some cartomizers. But I also have some surprises in store.

Have fun everyone!!!

I dedicate this contest to my Louie....(Allouette)

 

[CES]

ok...I'll start it off.

<---------these guys.

They're not official rescues, just not-quite-puppies that needed a place to live when i got them, and (of course) became family.

The one on the right, John Doe, was huddled under a bush - a 6 month old puppy with a dislocated leg. His leg healed and he learned that jumping is fun. He's 9 now.

The second dog, on the left, was found by a friend. She brought him to a weekly get together at a local pub. I took him home for a Limited Time, till we could find his people. LT is 6 now.

The middle dog is Monroe, the red headed step-dog. I helped a friend spring her from the pound...but he ended up not being able to keep her. She's 5 now.

 

[Lauralie]

OK I don't have pictures because my cousin and I were on our way out for the night, but.......we were driving down the gravel road and there was a young deer hung up in the fence. It had obviously tried to jump it but it's leg got tangled up in the top two strings of barbed wire. I made her stop so we could help it - she told me I was crazy but I couldn't just leave it there. She got it's attention and then I came up from the side and pinned it between the fence and myself. Tried lifting while she untangled but it didn't work. She drove back to the house and got some wire cutters (Both country girls). While she was gone i swear that deer realized I was trying to help and just relaxed in my arms. She got back - cut the barbed wire strands and he was free. Took him a second to figure it out - but then he took off like a shot! Was an awesomet thing.

 

[player30]

Our family fostered pregnant dogs (and one cat) for years for The Birmingham Humane Society. Many stories could be told, but I will tell about my favorite of the foster dogs.

Mama Dog came to our house two days before she delivered twelve puppies. She had no teeth! After one day at our house and being truely wild she dug out of our fence, which made me feel like the worst foster host. At ten o'cloc that night she reappeared at our front door. The next day she delivered twelve puppies and a four pound malignant uterus cancer tumor which just hung out of her tail end until the puppies were old enough for me to take her to the vet to find out what it was. The Humane Society told me not to worry about it, because they were going to euthanize her when the puppies were old enough to be adopted. We adopted her, I had her spayed and she went through chemo. She still had no teeth! The vet guesstimated her age to be 5-7. She lived with us for thirteen years until last November. She was the best mama I ever saw out of all of our mamas.

 

[keelalagirl55]

No pic ready to post via comp, so here is the story....Our cat named Trouble.

We used to live in Alabama and in the winter my mom, brother, and I used to go fishing at a place under a bridge where the water would receed.. We used to find and save all kinds of little critters down there...a huge turtle once that had been shot, little turtles that got tangled in fishing line...that sort of thing. Well, one day when we were there, we noticed a sack that got stuck out about a yard from the rocks where we fished. In this sack...well let's just say there are some very sadistic people out there and we found our little Trouble still alive and trying desperately to get out of the bag. We immediately left to go to the vet to have him checked out...what a trooper, he was VERY cold and a bit dehydrated. After a good warm up and a clean bill of health, we took him and his siblings home. He found a safe place to live and be loved (and I might add VERY well fed..the little porker) and his siblings had a proper place to rest.....brings me to tears everytime I tell this story.....God Bless all of you that care so deeply and take the time to love these creatures and find them as special as I do.....

 

[FreakyStylie]

One day, many years ago, after chopping wood, I went inside, made some lunch, and sat on the front porch to eat. A little while after I started to eat, I heard an odd noise coming from inside, so I went to investigate. It turned out to be a humming bird that had found its way in through the window and was frantically trying to get out.

I'm sure most people have seen a bird caught in something, and it's quite a site, but a humming bird is a thousand times faster and far more hyper than a typical bird, and I could swear his little eyes were going to pop out of his head from all the excitement. I grabbed a large towel to try and drape it over him and get him outside. Yeah, that didn't work! I felt like Wile E. Coyote going after the Road Runner. Room to room, upstairs, downstairs . . . everywhere but out the dang sliding glass door (tiny brains, LOL). Every time I would casually walk up towards him, he would dart away when I got within ten feet of him.

Finally though, the poor thing was getting exhausted, and I managed to get the towel over him and snuck my hand under to grab him. If you have never held a humming bird, they are the most amazingly tiny things with silky and shiny feathers, and the strangest beaks. Anyway, so I walked outside with him and opened my hands. He sat there for a second darting his head around, then bvvvvvz, he took off.

I sat back down and started eating my sandwich again. Just about the time I got a bite into my mouth, a humming bird zipped over to the railing at my eye level. He hovered there for a good solid minute, just watching me eat. Then, he let out two peeps and zipped off. In my mind, it sounded like "thank you", and I could swear it was the same bird trying to get his bearings on what had happened, and stopping by to show his gratitude.

It's not the most grand of stories, and our cats probably wouldn't want to hear it since they were both abandoned, and (being cats) would feel they have the more deserving tales, but that was just one of those moments that really felt great and will stick in my head until the day I die.

 

[lynleestar]

Okay I'll tell about Tika:

My mom woke up one day near the end of last June with pain in her leg and her foot was purple. She ended up needing bypass surgery which didn't go as planned. While she was in the hospital her 10 year old dog Loopy stayed with my boyfriend and I. Her tie broke while she was out the night before mom was released to come home. I looked everywhere; put up reward fliers, ad in the newspaper, called the local radio station (they run a 'pet patrol' segment every morning). On the 4th of July I walked the length of the parade with fliers and probably asked over 1000 people if they had seen her with no luck.

I was driving to our local shelter eery night to check the 'dump cages' in the back for Loopy. I pulled back there and saw the tiniest shadow in the back of a cage. I had to get out and look closer to be able to tell it was a *very* small dog. I thought she was a puppy until I got real close and saw her face. It was then apparent she was a rather old dog, and it looked like her jaw was crooked and her right eye was bulging. There was a note in the sleeve on the cage door that said 'My boyfriend kicked her, she needs a vet.".

I've dealt with our shelter before and I know that they would have put her to sleep no questions asked. I think I sat out there for 10 minutes debating whether I should take her home or not. Could I possibly upset my mom more...what was the right thing to do?? I finally decided if mom refused to let her in I would deal with my boyfriend, but no way was I leaving her there.

Vet estimates her to be 8-10 years old. The swelling in her eye went down and her jaw is somewhat more aligned. She only has one tooth so her tongue always sticks out. My mom fell in love with her from day one and I don't know how we would have gotten along without her. I still get upset thinking about Loopy, and can't help but look around whenever I'm driving in the neighborhood she was last in, but I think this is a great example of everything happening for a reason~!

Tika; 3.5 pounds of attitude

We miss you very much Loopy

 

[Double_D2010]

I can tell you about several animals that I have saved but the first one I ever saved was a Duck. Now mind you I was only 18 years old and had just got involved in the P.U.P program (People Understanding Pets) so this was my first rescue attempt. My first order of business was to get this duckling out of a house where it was being abused. A family had bought this duckling for their child an Easter gift and didn't really think it through thouroughly. Well as the duckling began to grow they became more and more angry because of the upkeep and the mess that it was making so instead of bringing it to a farm or calling our group for instance they decided they were going to kill it. They had a teenage son who said he would take care of it but his thought of "taking care of it" involved a group of his friends a baseball bat and a river. Luckily I had got word from one of the teenagers that was friends with the familiy's son and he told me where and when they were going to do this. When I showed up there were at least 8 boys of around 14 to 16 years old that were all drinking beer and having a grand old time tortuing this helpless duck, I got there as soon as they started burning his little webbed feet with a cigarette lighter and getting ready to play baseball with the duck as the ball. They were all yelling at me to get out and that it was none of my business. I told them it was definately my business and that I was a represntative of the "P.U.P" program and that I would be taking the duck with me and if they had a problem with it that the police that I called, and were on their way would make sure there wouldn't be a problem. Needless to say, they gave me the duck. The Police were there waiting at the entrance of the trail to the river bank for each and everyone of the boys who tried to flee. I don't know, nor do I care what happened to those boys but the Duck who I ending up naming "Mr. Quackers" came home with me. He was the sweetest little duck and he would follow us around the house and I also had a huge yard for him as well as a creek that ran around the house's border. He was content and striving. I would take him to the park as all of my friends had their dogs on leashes I had Mr Quackers with his diamond studded collar (fake of course) on a leash as well. The sight was very comical I would say but he was the best pet and had a good life with us. As he got older and older my dad convinced me that it was time for him to go to a farm to be around other ducks and to live a life that he deserved, we took him to a petting zoo since he was so friendly and they took him with open arms. It was hard to give him up after so many years but I had to do what was right for him. I wish I still had pictures of Mr. Quackers but in one of my many moves they were stored in a box somewhere. While I was in P.U.P I saved Mr. Quackers ,6 cats (one with pierced ears, CRUEL), several Pitt Bulls, a turtle, 4 ferrets and a bunch of hamsters. I still have one of the cats whose name is "Tigger". I loved being in that program and my father and I always talk of opening a no-kill shelter since we both are huge animal lovers. We have the property, a huge building and 5 acres we just have to make it happen. We started looking into it online, but have alot more to learn before we can do it. Animals have always had a special place in my heart and always will. I wish I could save each and every one of them, they can't speak so I want to try to give them voice by saving as many of them as I can. If you look in the eyes of an animal you can see what kind of life they live, when I see the eyes of a dog whose soul looks broken it tears me apart and pushes me that much closer to opening my "No-Kill" shelter. I am sorry this is soo long. I am just very passionate over this subject specifically. Thanks for reading, have a great day and give your pet a hug today.

 

[Lambch3p]

All 5 of my babies with fur were thrown away like trash by some irresponsible humans and it was their loss. My kitties are love machines, always wanting to snuggle and cuddle.Just look at my avator pic to see Iggi and Monkey hugging - so cute! They are valued members of my family and treated as such and in return I get all the love I can handle. The latest addition to my family was Okkie and this is her story.
For weeks I heard meowing outside my townhouse and I would go outside and there was no cat around anywhere. My roomate told me I was crazy and hearing things. My neighbor had been forclosed on a few month before and I thought she left her cat behind. I came up with a plan to break into her townhouse but soon realized that she had been gone too long for a cat to survive. (btw she took her cat with her). It was early January and unusally cold for Florida and had been raining for 3 days straight. I opened the door to watch the rain and one of my cats, Munchkin, ran out the door. Munchkin made a bee-line straight to my bushes. She started meowing and wouldn't stop. The kind of meow that makes you want to stop and check out why she's meowing. I peaked under my bush and the is a kitten about 6 months old. After I put my cat back in the house I scooped her out of the bushes. She was almost dead, starving with a flea collar imbeded into her neck. The collar was choking her to death slowly. She was completely drenched and covered wiith oil from trying to stay warm under cars. First I fed her and gave her water, she ate 2 1/2 cans of cat food! She seemed to perk right up after eating. I carefully removed the collar from her neck, cleaned and dressed her wounds. She didn't struggle at all. It was like she knew I was helping her. I kept her on my screen pourch in case she was sick. I didn't want her to make my babies sick. All she did all day was meow at the door to be let in. I felt terrible and spent hours with her sitting on the floor with her in my lap. About a week later it started to get cold again. She couldn't stay outside so I moved her to my bathroom. She wouldn't stop meowing. All day all night -meow, meow, meow.. at least I found out where all the meowing had come from. It was driving me crazy so I figured that I would let her sit on my lap while I read my email. She proceded to jump down and check out the house. That's when Iggi woke up. he was 5 months at the time (He's got a great rescue story too but I'll save that for another time) They came face to face. I thought there was going to be wwIII in my study! Instead it was love at first sight whithin moments the 2 kittens were rolling around like littermates. They were too cute for words! Best friends for life! We call Okkie the luckiest kitty around because she got saved. I have no doubt that she would have died if she hadn't been rescued by Munchkin. Not many people have a cat that was rescued by one of their other cats! We needed another cat like we needed another a**h**e, if ya know what I mean, but how could we give her up. She is the sweetest, happiest on the planet and I like to think it because we saved her. By the way, she hardly ever meows now, go figure.

 

[HyOnLyph]

Hello Everyone,
About 6 years ago our next door neighbor brought over a puppy that they had just purchased. They wanted to get a little companion for their other dog and "teach their spoiled daughter some responsibility" (their words, not mine.) It was the cutest little puggle (pug and beagle hybrid). Over the next year, the little puppy was locked in a cage in the "playroom" (the garage) and tormented and harassed while the child beat on the cage, teased the puppy and the other little dog was allowed to run free. We would go over whenever we could and bring Bailey (the Puggle) over for a play date with our Norwegian Elkhound. They became pretty good friends except Bailey had some socializing issues and it took a lot of patience. From time to time it felt like Trosta (the Elkhound) was asking us why we were putting her through such difficulty. But she has a soft spot in her heart for the wounded ones of the world. Eventually Bailey grew to trust Trosta and us.

After about a year of this, the neighbors decided to move. This was our opportunity. I approached the neighbor with the possibility of leaving Bailey. Using every argument I could think of to convince them, they eventually conceded that Bailey would be better off with us. So we "rescued" her.

Bailey has really taken to snuggling with my wife and will let her know when it's time to settle in for the evening. She's also very intuitive to the recovering women in our home. She'll get right up into their space. If she senses they are stressing, she'll climb up on them and stand up with her paws on their chest and stare them straight in the eye, as if to say... "no, don't focus on that.. focus on ME. Look at ME. You can't ignore ME" and suddenly their focus shifts, they start to laugh and stress falls away for a few moments. But if they're hurting, she'll just go over and snuggle up to them or curl up in their lap, lay her head down and sigh. Then she'll nuzzle their hand and practically force them to pet her, almost knowing that it will comfort them.

Trosta and Bailey have become inseperable. Trosta is more of the matriarch. She protects the home, guards the rooms and has a regal, confident aura about her. Bailey is more of the goofy one. A perfect match.

 

[webbcm127]

First off thanks for the contest. So here goes. When I was about 10 my mother worked at the local humane society, however that facility was not a non kill shelter so my mom started up a new animal control in the neighboring city wich was a no kill shelter, the shelter wasn't very big so we ended up moving to a place with a few acres of land, when I was 12 we had finally finished fencing off all the land so we could hold onto the animals that couldn't fit into the shelter or that were on the " list" at the other place. By the time I was 13 we had 22 cats, 35 dogs 12 puppies, an iguana, 2 rats, 4 birds, some bunnies and a handful of other animals, we maintained all of this until I was 17, the county we lived in decided that it was time to shut down the animal control and so we lost our funding and couldn't keep up with all the animals. We found them all homes except for the 4 dogs, 3, cats and the iguana...we kept them!-) I don't think I actually did any rescuing however I was apart of it!-) hope everyone is having a good day!-) thanx again for the contest

 

[pintail64]

This one happened quite a few years ago. I was driving on a rural road just outside of where I live when I noticed several dogs chasing after something on the side of the road. I then noticed a dead doe laying in the ditch. With my curiosity piqued, I pulled over to investigate. My pulling over caused the dogs to run off, but to my surprise what they were chasing did not. It was a newborn fawn. Apparently the dogs had got hold of it once because one of the legs had several bite marks on it.

I was able to get the fawn wrapped in a blanket and into my car. I took the poor thing home and called a local conservation agent. Since it was a weekend, he said he could not come get it till the first of the week. I spent my weekend feeding the little fella with a bottle of milk covered with a latex glove as a nipple. I was amazed that the newborn lasted out the weekend since deer are highly succeptable to shocks.

Monday came and the conservation agent picked up the fawn. Someone else took over the care of the poor thing, but I found out that it was taken to a petting zoo that cared for it and that many children were able to enjoy the opportunity to pet a live deer.

 

[MedsKid]

Ok I'm not sure if this counts but I'd like to share.

First off you need to understand my father. Hes not a nice man, abuse and neglect were about all my sisters and I got from him. Dad loved to try to buy our love with gifts (useless material objects), somehow he got it into his head that he could get us to love him by buying us a guinea pig. Her name was Patches, she was tricolor (black brown and white) he got her for free from my aunt who worked at a pet store. I loved Patches as did my sisters, we went to dads house alot just to visit her and teach her tricks (she was brilliant). However I began noticing Patches becoming thinner and more lethargic and HIGHLY jumpy, so I payed more attention to her then my sisters did. I quickly noticed abuse, dad would throw her from his shoulder, walk by the cage banging on it, barely feed her, no fresh water. I began going over there alot more often making sure she had fresh water daily as well as food and trips outside (she was like a little lawnmower). One day however Patches didnt take the carrot out of my hand. I checked her mouth and her incisors were gone. My brain shouted BIGGER INTERVENTION NEEDED! I borrowed money from my mother (I was only 12-13 so no job) borrowed mom and her car and took Patch to the vet. Vet told me she was highly stressed malnourished and had an infection. I knew she'd die sooner rather than later, she wasnt even 6 months old...I knew I couldnt let this happen! I asked my father if I could bring her to moms so that I could feed her and medicate her properly, grudgingly he agreed. I never brought her back to his place. She lived to be 8 years and died of old age safe and sound in my bedroom. R.I.P. Patches

 

[Katya]

My least glamorous and yet, somehow, most satisfying rescue was the rescue of 10 feeder mice. Yup. Some ..... had brought them to my daughter's school as a Renn Fair attraction. The kids painted their backs with food coloring and raced them. I'm not kidding. But nobody thought of an exit strategy. So when I came to school to pick up my child, she was standing at the curb, clutching a cardboard box full of white mice to her chest, sobbing uncontrollably. As it were, the only kid willing to take the leftover mice home was a snake owner.

And so we drove to the pet store, my kid and I and 10 stressed out, squeaking, mangy-looking, jumpy mice. It was a sight... We bought two big hamster cages, cage liners, food, water bottles, exercise wheels, jungle gym, little mouse houses, liquid vitamins, chew toys and tiny food bowls.

The mice were traumatized by the races, thirsty and hungry. They were shaking and attacking each other. One died before we got back home. We held a funeral in our backyard and then set up the cages for the survivors.

We did our best to keep them happy. We kept the cages clean and the mice were well fed and exercised, but no matter what we did, the stench of their urine became unbearable (they were all male). We had to move the cages to the garage. Every three or four weeks, we would find a dead mouse at the bottom of the cage. I cried, the kids cried--we wrapped them in tiny white organic paper towel shrouds and buried them, one by one, under the lemon tree. When we were down to three mice, we moved them back to the living room. The last one died just before Thanksgiving, seven months after we brought them home. His name was Tigger.

 

[lorikay13]

Okay....you guys are making me cry everytime I come to this thread! But that's okay.....it's good. If anyone can read through all these entries and not be moved....well.....I'm sorry but your probably doomed to return again and again and again until you learn something about love. Anyway....here is my entry....(no...it wont count).....comic relief of course!

So this was with husband number....ah....3...right....#3......we lived in this horrid tiny little house in this horrid tiny little town in NM. No screen door and no airconditioning....so in the summer time we left the door open. Camel spiders....tarantulas....all manner of creatures would get in. Whatever..... So....#3 has his PC right next to the door and that is where he sits pretty much all the time playing some stupid video game. So he is totally un-alert to his surroundings. I'm in the other room and I hear my Louie yipping. Louie doesnt yip.....she was a Collie....Collies bark.....Collies talk.....but they don't yip. So I come out to see what the hell? There is Louie standing in front of a kitchen cabinet that's door was left open......and I swear to God....she is talking to something. Now this is about a week after the giant camel spider under the fridge incedent.....a whole nother story......so I say to #3....HEY! WTF? you don't hear the dog? There is something in that cupboard and whatever the hell it is it's big enough the Louie is talking to it.......yeayea.....did you take too many pain pills again Lorraine? F-you.....you didnt believe me about the camel spider....YOU are looking in there to see what it is....get the hell in here.

#3...."OMG! WTF?!?!?!!? WHAT is that????"

Perfect.....God only knows.....how bout a little more info?

Well....it's black.....and it has fur.....

Oh get the hell out of the way....let me see......holy crap.....it's a little dog!

It was a tiny little toy poodle.....petrified to the point of being nonresponsive. So I pulled him out of the cupboard and he has a collar on. With a tag.......all it says is Toby and a phone number. Now this house was literally right next to the train tracks. On the other side of the tracks is a major 4 lane highway. And on the other side of that is a huge truckstop. So we figured that somehow this little guy had made it all the way across from the truckstop. We call the number and someone in Georgia answers. She says....my Dad is a trucker.....my Mom gave him that dog for a wedding anniversary present.....I'm not sure but I think he might have been driving through NM. So #3 runs over to the truckstop and has them announce over the loudspeaker about the dog. Sure enough.....the driver was just getting ready to leave...he had looked and looked and finally given up. So dog and driver were reunited and the guy was so happy he tried to give us money. Obviously we didnt take it....but he said his wife would have been heartbroken if he had come home without Toby. And that from now on Toby was a housedog. Turns out he was scared to death of the truck!

I hope ya'll enjoyed that one.....because if I have to do it again it will end up being a tearjerker....LOL

 

[bleedingmonk]

Seven years ago my wife and I wanted to rescue a wiener dog and with the help of my wife's sister we found our wiener dog in Evansville,In her name was Ginger.

When we first brought her home you could tell she lived a hard life between the scar on her chest and missing toes and the way she would act around me when i would try to bend down and pick her up she would get so scared. I didn't know if she would ever get past it. She did better around my wife but was scared of me. The first few days she just layed near my wife and wouldn't move we ever took her to the vet to get her checked up again because she was so down. I remember the around 4-5 days went by and I was sitting on the edge of my bed. She looked up at me and I said "I love you" in a baby voice and something in her clicked she ran up to me and started to kiss me she gave me a hug which she did every day after. She was probably the most loving dog I have ever seen her favorite thing in the world was to kiss, She would kiss for an hour if you would let her.....my wife thought I taught her that but she kinda taught herself...lol...She loved her "Pink B"...

In 2008 she developed a cough so we took her to the vet and he thought it was an infection so he gave us antibiotics and we thought it helped so a couple of months went by and she started to cough every time you would touch her lungs it turned out to be congestive heart failure. One morning we got up and she couldn't hardly walk or move. She was freezing cold so my wife got a laundry basket and as soon as we did she quit breathing my wife picked her up and she started breathing again so we knew it was bad. We rushed to the vet and got her straight back and she died as soon as she hit the table. He did cpr and brought her back a few minutes later she died again so he brought her back again. They put her on oygen and she improved enough to looke like she understood what was going on so they told us we should leave so we went to the store to buy her a toy or something...i don't know why we left but we did....So we bought her this little reindeer animal which we still have put up. Once we walked through the door we saw the laundry basket on the table we knew that she had died. This was probably one of the hardest days of my life....She was just that special to us....Sorry this was so long just felt like telling people about her story.

R.I.P Ginger.

 

[Art-n-Cate]

When I got both of my dogs as puppies, they became deathly ill within days. Spike, with Kennel Cough and Maxi, several years later with Parvo. Both vets wanted to put them down, reasoning they were much too sick and small (both were runts) to survive. I huffed myself and my puppies home and took care of them myself. Spike will be 11 this birthday, Maxi will be 2. I think love can work miracles!

 

[BCB]

This isn't a rescue story but it's my best animal story. A filthy, mangy, ugly grown cat appeared at our house one day and our cat (for unknown reasons) just loved it at first sight. Both were outside cats so they shared the food and water. A few weeks later that cat was hit by a car and crawled under the deck where I couldn't get to it--obviously hurt very bad. Our cat just sat quietly very, very close to it for about 2 hours until it finally died. Then our cat walked away. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed.

 

[Teresta]

I'll tell my rescue story. May of last year I was preparing to move and browsing craigslist for the area I was moving to, seeing if there was anything on there that we needed to pick up that was cheap, when I stumbled upon Daisy an 18 month old Beagle. My husband and I had talked about a dog and I called him and we decided to go ahead and call the person who made the listing. She told me it would be $50 for Daisy's food bowl, water bowl, crate, leash, collar, and a small amount of food. We decided that I would have the money but go to meet the dog first before we decided on it.

Well when we got there the house was terrible. It was very run down and there were many other dogs and cats inside. Daisy was tied outside in the back yard, where she stayed most of the time "because she likes it out there". They brought her around the house and she ran to me and took to me immediately, it was honestly love at first sight. There was no wary-ness just a complete sense of "GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!" So I paid the lady her $50 took the dog, the crate, and everything else and got her home. At first we set up her crate as her previous owners said if she wasn't outside, she was in her crate, again "because she likes it in there". It was tiny.

I was horrified, my sister has a dog that is smaller than her with a larger crate. The blanket that was in her crate was soaked in dog and cat pee (and smelled to high heaven) and she would only go in when bribed with a treat. She was terrified of it. That week before her vet appointment, we gave her a bath. I had found a few ticks here and there, and though I had dogs before her I wasn't very experienced in finding ticks. After that bath, my husband and I checked her over and pulled over 100 ticks off her body.

We took her to the vet to make sure she was spayed as they had said (she was) and to get her shots (they refused to give us vet records or tell us if she had her shots), and just generally have her checked over. She had terrible infections in both ears, and in between all her toes (we are still fighting the ones between her toes).

We got her home and have spent the past (almost) year working with her. In that time we've found out that she was terrified to howl, bar, or whine at all (and would hide and sulk if she did, until we taught her it was okay). We've also found that she does not like people putting hands towards her head, especially if its a fast movement, she flinches.

We've been able to introduce her to an appropriate sized crate, that at first she was terrified of, but now she just wanders in and out of it and treats it as her bedroom. Here are some (silly!) pictures of her now. She is a much happier and healthier pup.

 

[Atari]

Not to get too long winded Ill try to keep this short. My family has always adopted shelter dogs untill a friend had to get rid of his bull terrier (aka pit bull but I dont like using that name) Rivy was a white female with a pink nose and blue spots. She was antagonized by 5 children in the neighborhood and finally bit one of them. She was 6 months old and in a corner, I know what people do to these dogs but Rivy was backed in to a corner by her own house, she was scared. Those kids shouldnt have been in the yard, they were wrestling her to the ground and rough housing with her, a strange dog in a strange yard. Yes my buddy should have had her inside, or a fence or at least a sign, but that too was not her fault. I was in MD visiting, my buddy hadnt registered her and knew she was a done for. I brought her home with me to WV. I kept her for about 3 months untill my landlord found out and I cant keep that breed of dog here. Luckily there was a rescue here for dogs like her that couldnt be kept just because of her breed. Since then I havent owned another dog, but still every year for Christmas i go to SAMS and get a few bags of dog food to take up to the local shelter. My boss has a rot