One By One

I don't even remember where I found this poem. Maybe someone emailed it to me. Regardless, I found it so very touching that I just had to share.

ONE BY ONE

One by One, they pass by my cage,
Too old, too worn, too broken, no way.
Way past his time, he can't run and play.
They shake their heads slowly and go on their way.

A little old man, arthritic and sore,
It seems I am not wanted anymore.
I once had a home, I once had a bed,
A place that was warm, and where I was fed.

Now my muzzle is gray, and my eyes slowly fail.
Who wants a dog so old and so frail?
My family decided I didn't belong,
I got in their way, my attitude was wrong.

Whatever excuse they made in their head,
Can't justify how they left me for dead.
Now I sit in this cage, where day after day,
The younger dogs get adopted away.

When I had almost come to the end of my rope,
You saw my face, and I finally had hope.
You saw through the gray, and the legs bent with age,
And felt I still had life beyond this cage.

You took me home, gave me food and a bed,
And shared your own pillow with my poor tired head.
We snuggle and play, and you talk to me low,
You love me so dearly, you want me to know.

I may have lived most of my life with another,
But you outshine them with a love so much stronger.
And I promise to return all the love I can give,
To you, my dear person, as long as I live.

I may be with you for a week, or for years,
We will share many smiles, you will no doubt shed tears.
And when the time comes that God deems I must leave,
I know you will cry and your heart, it will grieve.

And when I arrive at the Bridge, all brand new,
My thoughts and my heart will still be with you.
And I will brag to all who will hear,
Of the person who made my last days so dear.

~ Author Unknown

I'll admit it: this brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. This reminds me so much of our sweet foster dog Ginger, who spent 9 months at the shelter before coming home with us, and eventually landing at my mom's house, where she was pampered for the last 1.5 years of her life. She brought so much joy to my mom in such a short amount of time. All senior dogs deserve the opportunity to love and be loved in the final years of their lives!

Playful Puppy

A few months ago, Petfinder added a feature to their website that allows each animal to have a video in addition to their three pictures. Getting video is always a challenge, often because dogs just sit there and don't DO anything, which doesn't make for very good video!

Last weekend at the shelter I took out a sweet, playful puppy named Merlin. This little guy was the perfect little performer for his own personal movie--I wish every dog would be this interesting! The part at the end where he throws the ball and then can't find it absolutely cracks me up! He was such an adorable little guy!

Plenty of Purebreds

Many people are under the impression that our nation's animal shelters are full of a bunch of undesirable mutts. I have several acquaintances who purchased a dog from a breeder and never even considered going to their local animal shelter first (and subsequently got a big lecture from me). Most rescue groups estimate at least 25% of dogs in shelters are purebred dogs. This is definitely the case at the Lawrence Humane Society as well. At our shelter yesterday I took pictures and video of 8 new dogs--2 of which were purebreds.

This is Carson. He's obviously a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. He is a happy little guy who was found as a stray.


This is beautiful little Bonnie the Beagle. Except for the tiny bit of extra weight she's carrying around her midsection, she looks like she could be a show dog. Look at that perfect pose!

In addition to Carson and Bonnie, there were at least 4 other brand new purebreds in the adoption area yesterday that I just didn't have the time to get pictures of--a Basset, a Brittany, a Dachshund, and a Lhasa Apso. Those are just the purebreds that came into our adoption area in the last week! There were already several Labrador Retrievers, a German Shorthair Pointer, and an American Pit Bull Terrier available for adoption. Our shelter frequently has Rat Terriers, Australian Cattle Dogs, Australian Shepherds, Dalmatians, Boxers and many other purebreds looking for forever homes.

The crazy thing is that I'm only talking about dogs in shelters here. I'm not even taking into consideration the thousands of adoptable dogs who are in the care of breed specific rescues across the country. There are rescue organizations for just about every dog breed known to man, with dogs of almost every age.

The point is that with a little patience and effort (and possibly a little travel), you can almost always search for and find the dog of your dreams to fit perfectly into your family!

Save A Dog, Inc.

The other day I was Googling "save a dog" to see if search engines were crawling on my new baby blog yet. They weren't, but I did come across all the other rescue organizations and shelters with "save a dog" in the name. I had no idea there were so many--prior to starting this blog I'd only searched for blogs by this name!

The most prominent similarly named group appears to be Save A Dog, Inc., an all breed rescue and adoption agency in Massachusetts. They have a great website and it looks like they are doing wonderful work in the New England area! I feel kind of bad I sort of took their blog name--hopefully they don't have an interest in blogging!

It's always a little overwhelming to search for dog rescue groups and see the sheer volume of organizations around the country trying to help our homeless furry friends. It's astonishing to think about how many unwanted and abandoned animals there are in our city alone--when you multiply that by every city in the country, many with multiple shelters/rescues, the numbers become absolutely staggering. That's why I choose to focus primarily on my doggy friends here in the Lawrence area--the ones I can actively do something to help!

With that said, if you're in the Boston area, you should definitely check out Save A Dog, Inc. They have lots of great information and many terrific resources--and a pretty awesome name! :)

Picture of the Day

I had to share the funniest picture I took today at the shelter. I laughed out loud when I was editing pictures tonight and this one popped up. This is Jerry.

If you look closely, you might notice that there's a biscuit sitting right on Jerry's tongue. It's almost like he's purposely showing off the food in his mouth. I probably won't use this picture for his Petfinder profile in case someone is grossed out that he's chewing with his mouth open, but I thought it was a funny picture none the less!

Black Dog Syndrome

This is a great article about a little-known phenomenon pertaining to our wonderful shelter dog friends who happen to have the wrong color fur. It was originally published in several online newspapers in April 2008. It's a little long, but it's very informative!

Large, black dogs often go unwanted at the nation’s animal shelters
By EMILY ZEUGNER
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - When Aaron Jones walks Gozer, his Rottweiler-hound mix, people cross the street to avoid them. Mothers scoop up their children. A lost motorist once rolled up the windows and drove off after spotting the dog. One woman screamed.

"He's the nicest dog I know," said Jones, 33, of Oakland, Calif. "It's hard to understand all the fear."

Gozer isn't aggressive and doesn't look mean or bark, Jones insists — people are afraid of the dog purely because it's big and black. As a puppy, Gozer was passed over for at least a month before Jones took him home.

According to animal shelter officials, big, black dogs like Gozer have more trouble finding a happy home than do other dogs. Some shelters even have a name for it: "Big black dog syndrome."

Nobody tracks the problem nationally, and local shelters often keep only limited data on the sizes, breeds and colors of the dogs that are adopted or put down, according to the Humane Society and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"But anecdotally," said Stephen Musso, executive vice president of the ASPCA, "that's what we hear from shelter after shelter: Big, black dogs just don't get adopted."

At the city animal shelter in Rogers, Ark., big, black dogs almost always make up the bulk of the animals put to sleep each month. Last month, 13 of the 14 dogs killed by the city were large and black — mostly Labs, shepherd mixes, pit bull mixes and Rottweillers, said Rhonda Dibasilio, manager of the city Animal Services Department.

It's not just that large dogs can be frightening: Animal shelters say black dogs of all sizes are difficult to photograph for online listings, and are hard to spot against the shadows of their crates and cages in dimly lighted kennels.

Older black dogs with a little white in their muzzles can look elderly. Bigger breeds like German shepherds or Chows aren't as fashionable as small, cuddly lap dogs.

Then there's the reputation. The idea of a big, black dog unleashing destruction is a common theme in books, movies and folklore as diverse as "The Hound of the Baskervilles," the "Harry Potter" series and "The Omen."

Even the common sign "Beware of Dog" depicts a big, black dog, teeth bared and gums dripping. The notion that the animals are menacing is so pervasive that Winston Churchill famously called depression "the black dog."

People are often wary of dark dogs because it's difficult to read their expressions, said Paul Nicosi, the dog behavior specialist at Bide-A-Wee animal shelter in New York City. Without defined eyebrows, a playful grin might be construed as an angry grimace, he said.

"There isn't a lot of contrast between black eyes and a black face, so people can't get a handle on how the dog is feeling," Nicosi said.

Joseph Giannini, owner of the Chicago dog-walking and doggie day care service Urban Out Sitters, said people may subconciously snub big black dogs because they aren't comfortable with what the pet may say about the owner.

"If I'm out with a Yorkie I definitely get treated very differently than if I'm walking a big Rottweiler or a dark pit bull mix," he said. "You look at the owner of a big, black dog and you might think, `Oh, there's a tough guy. I better avoid him and his mean dog.'"

It doesn't help that a quirk of dark-dog biology has led to an overabundance of large, black dogs, said Alex Yaffe, who founded Heartland Lab Rescue, a network for rescuing abandoned Labrador retrievers in Oklahoma. Labradors and pit bulls are resilient dogs who tend to have big litters of five or more, which increases overpopulation.

One black dog, Coal, took more than six months to find a home despite a sweet temperament, excellent recommendations and a featured spot on Yaffe's Web site. "He was just black," Yaffe said. "That was his one offense."

The Web site blackpearldogs.com, a resource devoted to increasing public awareness of the "big black dog phenomenon," offers some lighthearted reasons to adopt a big, black dog: Their color doesn't clash with furniture or clothing, hides dirt well, and is easy to accessorize. In other words, black dogs could be the new black.

The dogs do appeal to those who want protection on walks late at night, or men who seek a canine boost of machismo, said Sandra DeFeo, the co-executive director of the Humane Society of New York.

And there's a certain contingent of dog lovers who specifically seek out black dogs because of their connection to the trendy Black Dog bakery on Martha's Vineyard.

"But either way, feelings aren't based on fact," she said. "Any dog can be friendly or unfriendly — big, black dogs and little Chihuahuas alike."

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Whenever I'm introducing a dog from our shelter to a potential family and I mention that black dogs have difficulty getting adopted, people are always very surprised. Personally, I don't believe that most people intentionally discriminate against black dogs--it's just that without distinguishing markings, all black dogs (especially black lab mixes) look very similar. There's very little in their appearance that makes one black dog more appealing than the next. Their personalities (or "dogalities", as it were) are the only things that make them unique, and people often don't take the time to even meet them because the don't look unique. So much of the time they're never even given a chance!! The next time you talk to someone looking to adopt a shelter dog, make sure they are aware of Black Dog Syndrome!

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