ADOPT 2010 CONTEST

Because my human and I feel so strongly about adopting, I'm retelling my story.

Timid. That's it. One word. All the other dogs listed on the foster's site had little paragraphs to go with their pictures. I had one word. Timid. Who wouldn't be timid. One day I was in my own home. Later that day I would be dropped off at a shelter in NYC. Not long after that I was being transported miles away, out of state, to a dog foster. Because I had kennel cough I had to be kept away from the other dogs at the foster. What had I done to be moved so many times? I rarely bark, I don't chew on things, I'm pretty decent on a leash (sorry, all bets are off if there's a squirrel in the vicinity) and, dang it, I'm housebroken. Ok, I do shed like a fiend but still...

In the meantime, the person who'd become the human I own had earlier convinced her landlord to let her get a pet. Other tenants had cats. She wanted a dog. She checked out the shelters and even tried to adopt from one but the dog she had chosen had special needs and the shelter felt it best if the dog went to a different family. I hear she was disappointed but she never told me that. Anyway she continued to look and remembered a newspaper article that had been done a few years earlier about a dog foster not far from where she used to live.

She began doing an internet search and eventually found it. She checked out all the dogs and found one she thought she wanted (little did she know!) She filled out the paperwork and sent it off. She was approved and invited to come meet all of us. When she got there she learned that the dog she had originally wanted had been out on a trial adoption that apparently didn't go well and he was on his way back. My human was invited to wait.

While this was going on I followed her around like a little pumpkin colored shadow. I nudged her hands inviting her to scratch behind my ears...and she did! She and the foster mom continued to talk and I hovered at her side. She looked down at me and smiled. "I saw your picture on the computer." she said to me. Hey! She has brown eyes just like mine! Take me home! Please!

The foster mom suggested we go out for a walk together. Little did either of us realize that we were being observed to see how well we did together. We took a stroll down the street where I sniffed at just about every blade of grass in the area.
"How would you like to come home with me?" she asked and stroked my head.

I didn't like being in the car at first (oh no! Not another move!) but was persuaded and I rode with my head in her lap the whole way home. It took me a while to adjust but get this, she took time off from work to help me adjust to my new place.
There was a cat living downstairs who really took a liking to me and would rub up againsgt me every time I went out. When my human went to work I would take all of her dirty underwear out of the basket and leave it all over the living room. I didn't destroy it; I just wanted something of hers around when she wasn't there. She didn't like my redecorating with it and after a while I stopped. She bought me lots of toys but at first I didn't play with them. I kept wondering if I was going to have to move from there and I didn't want to get too attached to anything but after about three months I brought a toy over to her and asked her to play with me. Now we play all the time.

It's taken a while for me to come out of my shell but we keep working at it. She's taken me to work. The first visit didn't go too well. Let's just say that lots of paper towels and air freshener were needed for that trip. I've gotten much better with that and she's even used me with some of her clients (we call it "Chloe Therapy").

I love my new home. It's been almost three years now. My human has called me her birthday gift that has just kept on giving (I was adopted two days before her b'day.) Oh, and we took in the cat who took a liking to me. His owners abandoned him on the street when they left and my human just didn't like that at all. He's a brat but we play together a lot. I hope that all dogs (and cats too) who need homes are able to find just the right human for them. My adoption has changed my life. I'm not just one word anymore.

Happy Thanksgiving

The smell of turkey roasting in the oven is driving me crazy. Every time my human goes in to check on it I keep hoping that it'll fall out of the oven (and I hope that Hunter isn't around because he'll want some too.)

I am thankful that I have a warm, loving place to live and play. I'm thankful that I wasn't put out on the street to fend for myself like Hunter was. I'm thankful that I have lots of pup friends here. I'm thankful that my human has frozen some raw turkey parts (the parts she doesn't like) for me to enjoy at a later date.

I hope that all of my pup friends, all pups (and cats too) have many things to be thankful for today.

Shelter in MS Needs Help

I posted this in the appropriate forum section but I'm also going to include it in today's diary because I feel it's important.

I belong to another dog board as well and a member, who lives in Mississippi, posted about a shelter that is in danger of closing it's doors by the end of the month because of lack of funds.
There is concern that the dogs who aren't adopted will end up in kill shelters (I don't live in MS so I'm not familiar with shelter systems there.)

Here are the two links provided by the members on the other site:

http://carams.org/
(homepage)

http://carams.org/dogresults.php
(this is the dog search results page. Lots of beautiful dogs featured...178 of 'em! )

Maybe other dogsters can get the word out to adopt these dogs before the end of the month.

Some of My Favorite Things

Just for the heck of it I've posted a picture of some of my favorite things.

I love my Kong. My human puts such interesting (to me) treats in there for me. I bounce it on the floor and lick away at the insides to get the food out.

The other two items were, at one time, intact toys. The whitish item was once a chicken that squeaked but I had such a great time trying to find where that noise was coming from. The same for the camel (the brown item smiling in the picture.) My human came home from work one day and found toy guts and squeakers all over the living room. Even though they aren't as "poofy" as before and they haven't squeaked for months, I love playing "shake 'em" and "keep-away" with my human with them (no bulk makes it harder for her to get 'em away from me!) ;-)

My Best Friend

My best Friend, other than my human, is "Hunter". He's the black & white cat pictured. His owners used to live in my building. When they had to leave they left him behind. They pretty much kept him outside most of the time. He also had a different name for him. My human calls him "Hunter" because he always seems to be on the hunt for something. My human sneaks him into the apartment ~a lot~ (landlord isn't keen on having him back in the house. Supposedly his old apartment had to be flea bombed. I think the *people* had fleas but I digress.) He follows us on our walks and keeps tripping up my human. People stop and ask her questions about Hunter and I because he's almost always by my side (when he's not doing a "figure 8" through my human's legs). My human keeps cat food for him although he tore open a bag of my food and made himself quite at home with it. We're trying to get him moved in for good but it's going to take some work.

Spokesdog

On Saturday, Sept. 13th, I helped my human with a charity walk. She's very involved with the AIDS community here and has helped to organize the walk each year that it's held. Last year, shortly after I came to live with her, she brought me along. I was still a little nervous but everyone was very nice to me. This year I helped to raise money. My human took pictures of me modeling my banner and sent them to everybody she knows. This year I got a new one to wear: the fabric has paw prints on it (because she couldn't find any with red ribbons on it).

People were very nice to me again this year. There was one scary moment when we were walking by a truck that had a bigger dog than me sitting in it and he was a bit agitated by all the people walking by.

There was a small but enthusiastic crowd who supported us. We had music and food (some of which people snuck to me much to my human's dismay since I'm supposed to be on a diet and I had an upset tummy during the night.)

My picture sort of got into the newspaper. My human could find it
w a y in the distance of the photograph. Ah, my sort of 15 minutes of fame.

Getting ready

Last summer, shortly after I adopted my human, she let me participate in a charity walk. I got to wear a special banner she made me. They called me their "spokesdog." I'm going to do that again this year. My human began sending out her letters and e-mails and guess what?! She included my picture in it. It's the one where I'm wearing last year's banner. I think people should give 'cause it's a good cause. Or they could donate simply because they think I'm stylin' in the banner. Either way is fine by me. The people there were really nice to me even when I was really shy and not sure what to do. People driving by gave us the "thumbs up." If I had thumbs, I would've done it back to them. Hmm, speaking of thumbs, my human has a couple. I think she should be using them to scratch my belly.

Rough week

The good news received at the vet's office about being 5 pounds down was totally replaced by being sick for over a week. I had to get my vacinations and for one of them the side effect was vomiting. Unfortunately, it was difficult for my human to tell if my upset stomach was from the shot or from the stress at being at the vet's.
Unfortunately either end tends to react badly once I get home from there. But I had been placed on another medication too because I seem to have developed some hot spots. My human thinks that might have been the culprit.

So for the next week I had the PB & Js : poops, barfs & just plain miserables. My human commented how the apartment was now decorated in newspapers and puppy pads. Stock in trash bags probably shot up considerably too. I had to be dragged outside. I didn't try to get my human out of bed when the alarm went off. I barely picked my head up. I drank a lot though. Tons of water. What gets replenished needs to be deplenished and well...

The vet told my human to stop the medication (which she had already done) and to give my stomach a chance to rest so no offering of food for that day. I couldn't even think of eating and my human made me a special meal suggested by the vet. Saturday night I nibbled at the corner of a dog biscuit that I had hidden under my toy basket. My human was really psyched to see that. On Sunday I was ready for food! We took a walk (first real one in over a week!) My human was so happy I ate breakfast that she gave me extra treats!
She NEVER does that! I've probably gained back the 5 pounds I lost but I'm happy to be back to my ol' self again. :-)

A Year in Review

Well, it's been a little more than a year now since I adopted my human. Recently I thought about that a little bit and sent a letter to the woman who rescued me from the NYC shelter just prior to me adopting my human, thanking her for taking care of me while I waited for the right person to show up. Everyone showed lots of interest in the puppies or the really playful dogs but tended to shy away from the one who was so confused by everything that had happened to her.
Except this human who showed up last July. She was adopting a dog as a birthday gift for herself. But the one she wanted had been adopted. She learned that he was on his way back to the rescue. His trial adoption hadn't worked out. Oh no! Was I going to lose my chance? So I nudged the human's hand hoping, hoping that she could see that I really wanted to go home. Please scratch my ears. Please.
I attached myself like glue to her side. Please take me hope. Please let me adopt you.

I was very scared when I first moved in. Oh no! Not another place to get used to. She let me explore and made me a special place near a window where I could watch the squirrels and the birds (and sometimes the dog who lived next door. Sadly, that dog is now at Rainbow Bridge.)

Well, to my human's relief, I no longer decorate the living room with dirty laundry. She didn't like my design esthetic anyway and kept picking up the items and putting them back in the laundry basket. Now my toys or the toy's fluffy guts are all over the living room :-)

I used to be really afraid of cars. Getting in them in particular. Maybe it was because in such a short period of time every time I got into a car I was living some place new. New sounds, new smells, new people and sometimes new animals. Very unsettling. Now, if I hear my human's keys I'm hoping that it's a trip I can take with her. I have my own car towel to sit on and a special seat belt set up. I'm very well behaved while we're driving.

I like playing games with my human. I didn't when I first moved in. It took a few months before I would even look at my toys. Sometimes she starts them and sometimes I do. I like playing "keep-away" with her: I'll bring my toy and sometimes one of my bones to her and then I'll body block her to keep it away from her. I almost always win.

I still have a fear of decorations with faces on them like jack-o-lanterns or Santa faces, etc. I don't know why. My human put a snowman out at Christmastime and I cried everytime I walked by it. We still haven't figured out that one.

We go for lots of walks and sometimes my human brings me to work with her. She has let me help her with her charity work too (which I'll be doing again in September. I hope she gets a digital camera before then because I want her to take lots of pictures of me helping!)

She doesn't get mad at me when I don't feel well and I sometimes have accidents in the house (which happened the other day when I came home from the vet...I got sick to my stomach and tried to hide it but she found it anyway...she's a smart one that human.) She also doesn't get mad if I sneak up on her bed when she's sleeping. She doesn't get mad that I shed all over the house. She brushed me every night .

I turned 3 earlier this month and I can't believe all of the changes I went through over the year. My human says that there is still stuff that I need to work on but I'm learning. I think I need to go nudge her hand for a belly rub.

Vet visit

Today I had my yearly visit to the vet. We had a new doctor today and he seemed very nice. I have a hard time with new people and I kept trying to hide behind my human but she was sitting in a chair in the exam room which made it impossible to get behind her. I thought I had her trained better than that.

We met a very nice lady who was waiting for her dog. She was taking to my human (and scratching my ears which is how I know she's very nice!) She told my human that she had bought her dog from a pet store a few years ago. She said she knew it might be a problem because she'd heard many of those dogs come from puppy mills but she had fallen in love with the dog. Anyway, the dog did develop health problems (cardiac in particular) and she's been on some heavy duty medications to try to keep her as healthy as possible. Then the vet tech brought her dog out and you could tell that the poor thing had really had a challenging life with her medical issues. She may have heart problems but loving her human wasn't one of 'em. Her little tail wagged like it was going to fall off. I wish her the best. Sadly, I didn't catch her name.

The good news at this visit was that I lost 5 pounds. My human was very excited about that. Because it's been so humid around here, our 2nd walk of the day was cut out and I'm just trotting around our back yard or limited greatly. In high humidity I can only tolerate about 15 minutes of that then I want to be back inside. Our first and third walks of the day are done when it's cooler.

I've been scratching a lot and my human (and the doctor) think that I might have been bitten by fleas when my cat buddy was in the apartment. I get a monthly treatment to keep fleas and ticks away but they feel that the little buggers might have had a chance to bite me then die off from the treatment. I'm allergic to flea bites. So I have some stuff now to take the itchies away.

The rest of the visit was routine. Didn't like the temperature taking at all. Nope. At least offer me a doggy biscuit or something to distract me. Yikes.
Then it was time for my shots. Apparently these people aren't happy unless they're poking something into me. I gave my human a mournful look and used all of the telepathic powers that I could to get her to understand that I wanted to go home...NOW. Eventually she did and she gave me a special biscuit for being so brave (it was ok but I know she's got chicken and cheese in the fridge.)

All of the anxiety of the visit has made me tired. I think I'll take a ..zzzzzzzzz.