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A true surivor

My day

Hi guys, well I've decided I shall try to do a daily diary entry, hope you like it and the cats will have one too.

Today is a 10 degree day (50F). I'm a hardy girl though so I don't mind the rain much. My humans are happy for the rain as we've been in drought. I've found things to do to occupy me today from the rain. Ooooo the fun things, I got to sleep and then when my owner came home I got to play in the yard, I wanted to chase Crayons but my meanie owner didn't let me have any fun. She said something about that's not nice for the kitty. Oh well, I greeted her, hi owner! Hi owner, ooooo pet me! Yes that's the spot, oooo I smell something good over there, what? My paws are muddy? I didn't hear you let me jump up and you can repeat that again, oh well sniff sniff is that bread you are throwing for the birds? No no no that's not right, why waste perfectly good bread on birds? Let ME help you with that, mmmmm tastes good. Oooo what's that we are going inside? I can beat you in! Watch me jump up the stairs! I can fly, I really can! You take too long, come on come on, that's better, let me give you a kiss, ooo are we sitting down? Kisses for you, let me clean your face with my tongue. I love you owner.

Woofs and wags Sheeba. ♥ ♥

ADOPT 09 CONTEST

As you know in February Victoria was hit by the bad bush fires and many perished. Well here is the story of a very lucky survivor.

Two months after Monty was put down we felt it was time to start looking for another dog. We went to an animal shelter and had a look at the dogs, I had a look at a puppy and older Staffy mix, I liked her and we were enquiring when they read that she didn’t like cats, which would be a problem so we couldn’t get her.

The next day I asked Monty to help us find the right dog at the right time. Mum and I were talking about dogs and agreed that a staffy cross would be great for us. Just as mum mentioned the word staffy cross the phone rang, mum answered and it was the vet clinic that had been caring for animals from the fire. (We had put down our name to foster any animals about a week after the fires, we ad thought they didn’t need us as you’d think lots would put down to foster) They asked if we were still interested in fostering a dog, we said of course and they said they had a young staffy cross needing fostering.

We said how that’s great we were interested in getting a staffy, we asked if she got along with cats and they said they weren’t sure but she didn’t seem to mind the cats in the cages when she was walked back to her pen. They said she had been at the clinic for two weeks and no one had claimed her and they felt bad for her being in a pen. We said ok, it’s Worthing taking a look so we drove up to the clinic and on the way the name “Sheeba” came to mind. When we arrived they led us to a medium sized brindle staffy cross in a pen, we thought wow she’s big (Monty was 8kgs and this dog was 24kgs). She was defiantly cute though so they said if we’d like we could take her for a walk, mum suggested I walk her so I held the leash with her pulling on the end, we got out the door and we walked her for a bit, I started calling her Sheeba as I quiet liked the name and she seemed to respond well to it.

When we returned into the clinic we said we would love to foster her, the vets said they reckon her owner died as it had been so long, we happily drove home with her. The next day she was coughing and two days later it got worse and she was in heat so we took her back to the vets, they said they had a man they believed to be her owner on the phone, he described a dog of her age, build, with sagging teats and brindle with a ridge on her back. The vets said she had a few too many litters. The man said he would come in the next week to identify her but it seemed obvious she was his, he never mentioned her name and we took her back home, her cough cleared up in two days and she was well. She didn’t mind our pets and had barely any issues with the cats. I was very fond of her.

Soon enough a week had passed and we went in to see the man; I was feeling sad as I didn’t want to give her up. After 15 minutes the man wasn’t there, Sheeba needed a new collar so we went to look for another in the donation shipping container, after an hour and a half the man still hadn’t sown and he never rung to say he couldn’t come or that he was delayed. We went home.

Time dragged on and we didn’t hear anything from the so called owner. We were getting frustrated as we wanted to desex her and enrol her in training classes. The vets sent a letter to the man saying if he doesn’t reply in two weeks then they take it he’s surrended her, after about three days he rung the vets and said in a drawling voice “of course I want my bloody dog back”. He wanted to go in again on the Monday. It was Sunday evening. I was feeling really sad and in the morning I noticed my bed side lamp was on, it’s a mystery how it came on. On the Monday the vet came and got Sheeba, the, man came and looked at Sheeba then said that isn’t my dog. Sheeba didn’t react either which is strange for her, she loves people including strangers, the vets said because it had bee so long legally Sheeba is ours now. It went from a gruelling time of confusion and despair of fostering to permanent ownership of a wonderful dog. Sheeba is amazingly friendly and overs us in kisses. She is very fortunate to of survived the fires. The vet said not many dogs made it which made it more strange we got to foster her, was it luck? I believe Monty had a part in this all along. Give a dog a chance and foster, you just might end up lucky, be optimistic and good things will come. Fostering and adopting are wonderful.