I want to relate this story from my recent past and Sunday afternoon.
As everyone here knows, I'm a dog lover and especially partial to boxers. Well, I wanted to get another dog to keep my girl, Ruby(my dog), company and to fill a bit of a hole left by my kids never being around anymore. So I went through a long, drawn out process of trying to adopt a boxer through a rescue organization. Well this particular agency is an all volunteer agency and wasn't run particularly well, so it took a lot longer than it should have to get my dog, but I did.
But that's not the story. The story is that after many misplacements of my application and internal passing the buck at the agency, I found out the fastest way to get a dog through adoption is to foster the dog for adoption, meaning taking the dog, all problems included, straight from it's bad situation and caring for it while it still isn't yours and hoping the dog fits into your lifestyle and needs.
So about a week before Xmas I get a call saying that the MSPCA had removed a dog from a domestic violence situation and that the dog had also been mistreated with violence and neglect. Would I foster the dog, possibly to adopt? I said sure but since the dog was reported to have been violent to other animals they wanted me to take my dog to meet it first to see if it was a match.
So Ruby and my wife and I went to meet this dog. The handler at the MSPCA facility was very wary of the match saying this was a violent dog. So they had an outdoor yard area to work with dogs and we went out there and introduced the dogs. The poor thing. It had to be the skinniest full grown boxer I had ever seen but he was beautiful.
The introductions went well. He ate treats out of my hand and allowed me to pet him and generally seemed to like Ruby when he growled and tried to jump on Ruby. But not in a bad way. His fur wasn't sticking up. His tail wasn't up. He didn't try to bite and Ruby didn't show any defensive reaction of attack. It looked like normal, front paws boxing, rough house boxer play. The breed plays rough, it's what they do.
Well the handler flipped. She refused to let me walk him on the leash. She refused to hand the dog over to me even though the agency was taking over his case. She was going to recommend he be put down for animal aggression. I didn't see it. When I reported back to the agency I told them what happened and I told them I thought this girl didn't have a lot of experience with active larger breeds and was making a huge mistake putting this dog down. He could make a wonderful pet for someone.
So time passes, another dog becomes available(Shamrock, the new doggie in my avatar) and we get him and he is wonderful. But come 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon the agency calls and says they have, based on my recommendation decided to rescue the dog at MSPCA but they need to get him out of there almost immediately or else he would be put down in the morning. The problem, their volunteer in my area has H1N1 and can't pick the dog up.
They found a foster home for the dog in Connecticut but need someone to pick up the dog, immediately and drive him out to the Worcester area to meet the foster parents and drop him off. Being emotionally invested in the situation a tad bit already, I dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove through the snow that was left over all the way to Marblehead from Everett, picked him up and brought him to the rest stop on the pike in Charlton, west of Worcester.
With me, he was a good boy, showed loving affection, obedience and a calm demeanor. While my wife drove, he rested in the back seat with me with his head on my lap, eating treats, licking my hands and then falling asleep. I turned him over to his very lucky foster parents and 5 hours later, finally got home.
Today, the foster mom and the head of the agency called me to tell me he is doing great, that he is indeed a great dog without animal aggression yet to be demonstrated and that they wanted to thank me and now offer me a place in their agency, if I would be willing. They said they could use a person with my dedication and love for animals.
I'm flattered and torn. I had to tell them I would think about it. I would love to help but have so, so, so much on my plate to begin with. I'm probably going to have to pass but for some reason, saying yes FEELs so right and I don't know what to do.
Anyway that's my "How am I doing" story of my day. While making collection calls for my AR always gets me down a bit, this made my day.
