Journal

I couldn't decide which one to take so we just took both. One is a boxer with heartworm and the other is a pathetic looking little pit bull puppy with demodex (a type of mange which they swore was not contagious... I guess we'll find out!). It's been about 5 and a half years since we had a puppy in the house so we are revisiting all those fun puppy things like peeing in the house and biting ankles and chewing on EVERYTHING. =)

Rufus is doing well. He has a vet appt for Sept 8, so we should know more about his condition soon. He certainly seems very healthy! He's very good with the puppy... unbelievably gentle and patient.

We took Brin and Echo to Sewickley Heights, then took Rufus and Dex to a tailgate party. Warren's cleaning the tub for me cos I just had to bathe Brin and Echo cos they swam at the park and got kinda smelly.

Rufus's family wants to see him this weekend. They are really excited and can't wait another week. I'm trying to decide if we should meet at the park or if it would be okay to let them just take him for an afternoon or something. I should probably go do a "home visit" before deciding to leave him there. It just makes me feel better. Warren's on call tomorrow, so we pretty much have to stay home.

The people who said they wanted Dex last month never returned my phone call. So I guess they changed their minds. That tends to happen when people actually have a chance to think about it. So we'll have to start looking for a home for him. I guess we'll still have him when we come in on the 31st. He (Warren, not Dex) has to go to school for a half day so it will be late afternoon/suppertime when we get there.

Warren was making me crazy last week because he wanted to keep Dex, and was making me feel like the bad guy for not wanting to keep him. Meanwhile I'm putting in hours every day just trying to keep up with all the feeding and peeing and pooping and medicating and training and cat chasing and Rufus-biting. He severely scraped up Rufus's neck so I'm back to keeping them separated again. The dumb thing is that Rufus seems to like it. Dex has come away with some cuts too though. They really are just playing but it's extremely violent play, and neither one seems to have a normal pain threshold. I knew that about Dex though because I quicked his nail once and he never even blinked. I didn't even know I did it until I saw blood on me and I was like, oh, where did that come from? He didn't even limp or anything. I think that's a pit bull thing.

Oh, I just got done bathing him cos he went outside and stepped in poop and came in and got it all over Warren's jeans. At least he's small and doesn't have much hair so it doesn't take long to bathe him.

Rufus knocked the toaster on the floor a couple times when we left him home alone. We've been wanting a new toaster anyway so we got one. It was good too because he knocked it off again while we were shopping for the new one, and it broke. Good timing.

Oh, and tell dad that I got a lot of use out of the little remote camera thing with Rufus. First I used it to see how badly he barked and stuff in the crate. Then I did it again after he was on benadryl. And then I set it up in the kitchen to see how he did without the crate. It was very useful.

"My fiance & I spoke with you at Misty Pines on Customer Appreciation Day about adopting Dex. Has he passed the vet check? We are still interesting in adopting him & would like to bring our 2 dogs to meet Dex. Please contact me or my fiance C. Thank you!"

It's good to hear from you. I left a message for you early this week and when I didn't hear from you, I thought you'd changed your mind! They weren't able to schedule his vet check until Thursday, the 23rd. I expect him to pass because his skin and coat look fine. They won't neuter him until after he passes the vet check, and they don't do surgeries on Fridays, so the earliest he could be neutered is Monday the 27th. I can't schedule that until after the vet check on Thursday though. Thank you so much for being patient! They are pretty careful about making sure all the dogs are healthy before letting them go to their new homes.

The boxer we had at Misty Pines has also found a new family and will be going home after his vet check on the 23rd! His family wants to see him this weekend also. We are thinking of meeting them at the dog run in Frick Park sometime on Sunday. Do you think that would work for you? We are pretty flexible on times. If not, it's no problem. We can set up another time and/or place. Frick is a good spot because it's fenced and it's also close to us, but I know it's more of a drive for you.

I have more recent pictures of Dex but I haven't gotten around to getting them up on the site. He has to be 20 lbs at this point! Very smart, doing great with housetraining, tries to be good but sometimes he's a little devil! You'll need to make sure your other dogs get a break from him because he never wants to quit playing. Are you planning to use a crate? (Please say yes!)

I check my email pretty frequently, or you can call me.

P.S. You are lucky... Warren has been trying to convince me to keep Dex! ;-)

We're meeting both Rufus's and Dex's families tomorrow at the park at noon. Dex's people emailed last night and said they want to see him so their dogs can play with him a little. I was surprised cos I thought for sure that they changed their minds. She said she lost my number (which I did leave in my message, so I don't know what happened there) and she called Misty Pines but they knew nothing about it, and then she called the shelter and they said they didn't know anything about it! So finally she realized she could just email me.

I'm still trying to help the other family find a boxer. There is a nice looking one at the shelter but she's 8 so I don't know if they'll want her. All the dogs I was supposed to foster have been adopted. So if she isn't adopted soon, maybe I'll foster her. Oh, but Echo probably won't let me.

Things are going well here. Are there any special adoption requirements for pit bulls? It seems like I heard something about it at one time but I've never fostered a pit so I wasn't sure. I have a really nice couple interested in Dex.

Assuming everything goes as planned and there are no surprises at the vet check on Thursday, both of my boys should be in their new homes by the end of the week or early next week! (Dex still needs to be neutered.) So I'll be available to foster whoever needs me. =)

"Fantastic! We have plenty of foster candidates available so I cannot wait for these 2 to be placed! As for Dex's family, your recommendation is fine. Remember adoption is $150 which includes puppy training classes. Right now I have a litter of pups that need a foster for a week or two ..."

We met Rufus's family at the park at noon. There were a lot of dogs there and it wasn't safe to let their kids go in, so it was kinda dumb cos Rufus just wanted to play with the other dogs and was totally ignoring all the kids standing at the fence. So I ended up just sending Rufus home with them. We were planning to do that anyway, sort of as a trial. They are supposed to return him sometime this afternoon/evening. Hopefully they'll call soon and haven't just disappeared somewhere with him.

Dex's people were supposed to meet us there too. They finally called us on the cell and said they had tried to come to the dog run at upper Frick but somehow ended up at the lower one. They walked pretty far the wrong way. Rather than trying to explain to them how to get to the upper one, we walked down and then took them back up to the fenced area. They really love Dex. He was even coming to them when they called him at the park, which he doesn't even really do with us. He was fine with their male dog (a pit mix) but he was a little aggressive with their female puppy. She's a little bit taller and maybe a couple weeks older than he is, and skinny and sweet and gentle. They will need to intervene when Dex gets carried away. Some mean lady was there and she said, "I would be worried about that dog if I were you." I wanted to smack her. Did she really think we were unaware of the problem?

Rufus's mom just called. She asked if they can keep him until after dinner. So they're gonna bring him back around 7:30. She said he's doing great, loves everyone, met half the neighborhood already, hasn't had any accidents... sounds like he's going to fit in really well there. She said he didn't want to leave me at the park. He kept looking back to see where I was. That's so sad.

Dex is sound asleep. He had another bath and now he's white again. Brin got in the water so he needed a bath too, so now he's licking himself dry. Echo didn't need a bath cos she didn't really do much at the park today. She's had an upset tummy since yesterday. And it's her own fault. I was going crazy trying to figure out where I put Rufus's special bone that he only gets when he's home alone and I finally figured out what happened to it when I heard Echo barfing yesterday. It was a pile of undigested wheat bone. She threw up several more times after that. Today I tried to look at a mark on her belly and she cried when I touched her. And she's just been kinda lethargic and not quite herself. Hopefully she's just not feeling good from eating that entire bone which was supposed to last Rufus at least another week. I'll have to keep an eye on her.

If Rufus's vet check goes okay, he'll go home with them on Thursday evening. I told her that if they don't clear him for whatever reason, she can just take him home anyway. He's been acting weird since he's been back and the only thing I can figure is that he knows he's their dog now and he misses them.

3:19 PM at work (quitting time is 3:20): "Hi, this is M from the humane society. I see that you have a vet check scheduled for Rufus for tomorrow... The doctor won't be here and she really needs to listen to his heart before he can be released for adoption. Can you bring him in on Friday during the day?"

No, I have to work.

"She'll be here tonight until 6, could you bring him in tonight?"

Sure.

"Okay, let me see if we can fit you in and I'll call you back."

I told her to call me at home. I got home and there was a message:

"Hi, this is M, call me at the shelter and have them page me."

I tried, but you can't have someone paged unless a real person answers the phone, which is rare. I got a recording twice and then finally left a message for her to call me back at home. 45 minutes later she hadn't called, and it was getting late enough that I needed to know whether they could see him tonight. So I called back and actually got a human on the other end. They paged her.

"The doctor really needs to see him before he can be released for adoption, and she is only here during the day. Can you bring him in on Friday before four?"

(still) no.

Pause.

I can have someone else bring him in on Friday, would that be okay?

"Sure."

So here's the plan. We're taking both dogs to the clinic tomorrow evening. Rufus will get another heartworm test. (The techs can do that.) His new mom will meet us there and she will take Rufus home that night. She will then take him back on Friday for his appointment with the actual vet. If he passes his vet check, she will then fill out the paperwork and take him home for good. Even if he doesn't pass the vet check, I told her to just go ahead and take him home and we'll work out the details later. I'm so sick of this. The dog is not sick. And even if he was... what difference does it make if he stays with me or with them? He'll be better off there anyway cos he won't have to be alone all day. So I had to make some executive decisions and if they don't like it they can fire me.

I loved the pictures. It looks like they have always been together. And the one with the kid is fantastic. I bet it makes you feel good to see a kid being like that with a dog. I told Karen that it makes me think of that dog in Peter Pan, I think it's named Nana. It just looks like Rufus has been taking care of them forever.

I worry about stuff like this too much, when I know I'm right. I was having these imaginary conversations...

"Hypothetically speaking... if I tell you I am no longer able to foster Rufus, what will happen to him? Will he go onto the adoption floor, or will you try to put him into another foster home?"

And if they said "foster home" I point to K and say, "okay, here's your foster home," and if they say adoption, I'll say, "okay, here's your adopter." Cos I mean, what are their options, really, if I decline? I'm only obligated to keep him for two weeks at a time (that's a new rule -- you are supposed to renew your "commitment" every two weeks). Keep him in a holding kennel until they run out of space, at which point he suddenly becomes "adoptable?" I'm sick of it. Not to mention that I STILL haven't actually seen a vet after all these vet checks we've gone to. Never heard an actual vet say why he had to stay in foster for so long. If it's to make sure his activity is restricted... um, guess what. Haven't done that since the first week. And he didn't keel over and die. So therefore, he's not sick, and therefore, he's adoptable. Sorry, just venting early in the morning.