return to top

Keep Me Safe

My Story

As many of you already know, I'm going to my furever home on Monday! But Foster Mom feels like my story is so special, she wants to summarize it all over again.

A lot of people think they know what "skin and bones" means, but they really don't. People who saw me at adoption events (anywhere from 2-3 months after putting on 10 pounds) often remarked "He is skin and bones!" but they never saw me in the beginning.

On Wednesday January 3, 2007, an animal control officer spotted me wandering around, caught me, and put me in one of the compartments of his truck. A scarey ordeal, but at least that compartment was warm.

I went to the shelter and was put in a kennel with another dog that had been caught as a stray that day. We waited for our stray holding time to be up. We all wait a certain amount of days to see if someone will come and claim us. But judging from my condition, I think the shelter staff knew that I wasn't going to be claimed.

So that Saturday, my FM was volunteering at the shelter and someone mentioned me to her. They said, "There is a very skinny pointer in building 2 that needs fostering..." and FM said she'd go over to take a look at me. At first she didn't even notice me, and had to walk through the building twice! Then she finally spotted me: standing very forlornly in the doorway to my outside run, standing next to my equally depressed kennelmate. I had no meat on my neck, my ribs stuck out, my hips protruded and so did my spine, my stomach looked bloated, I had sores on my back, I wasn't neutered, and my legs looked odd. I didn't have any interest in this person standing in front of my kennel. I just stared.

FM left the shelter that day without asking for more info on me, but then e-mailed the shelter later to get the info. Then she said "We'll take him!" and picked me up that Friday.

The most critical part of all of this was the timing. Good thing the shelter knew that FM was available to foster again. I spent only a week and a half in the shelter.

So that Friday, FM walked back to building 2 with a shelter worker. This time I was in a different kennel with a beagle. Both of us were just sitting in our kennel, looking dejected. The door to our outside run was closed off because it was very cold outside and we all needed to stay inside where it was warm. When our kennel door opened, my beagle buddy backed up a couple of steps, but I remained sitting & staring. Neither of us made any move to escape from the kennel. The shelter worker slipped a kennel lead over my head, but still I didn't move. After several minutes of coaxing & tugging, she picked me up. While I didn't fight it, my whole body went stiff. It looked like I was bending myself in half, right in the middle of my spine, since I was thrusting my back legs forward. I was carried through a series of doors and plopped on the lobby floor, where I just stood there and tried not to look at anyone. It looked as if I didn't even have the muscles to hold my head up properly. My kennel ID tag was taken off. Finally, my new FM picked me up and carried me to the van and put me inside a crate. She tried to give me some treats but I didn't take them. The entire ride to my new foster home, I just stared at FM.

When we arrived at my foster home, I had to be lifted out of the crate and to the backyard. It was as if I didn't know how to walk. When FM took my leash off of me, I slowly walked around the yard and sniffed. When I moved, it was as if I was folded in half again. I didn't run. The most I could do was a very fast walk. I didn't want to come to FM, but she put the leash on me again and started to introduce me to my new foster siblings. Surprisingly, they loved me right away. I just stood there and took their sniffs and feebly sniffed them back.

The first couple of days, I was very nervous. I would peek around corners at FM. I didn't know how to go up or down steps, so at first FM had to carry me a lot. By the second day, I figured it out and was brave enough to go outside on my own. Having my foster siblings around really helped, because I would follow them outside. It also took about a week for me to start running, even though it was very slow at first.

I acted like I'd never been in a house before, or like I'd never been asked to be a civil member of a family. Whenever FM would get herself some food, I would literally climb on her wherever she sat, I was so obsessed with that food. In less than a week, I got over it, with the help of FM.

FM also found that I had fleas, so I had to get a bath. It was the worst thing ever -- I absolutely hated it. I also had tapeworms. FM thought it would be easiest to bring me to her own vet rather than all the way down to the shelter in order to get deworming meds. She also wanted to know if I had ear mites since my ears were soooo dirty. I was very well behaved at the vet and walked nicely on the leash. They told FM that I was healthy apart from being very sk