As in all of life, with the ups come the downs

Our Big Cheekaleeka, one of our long termers was adopted! We even got to see her again since she had to be brought back to have a rash checked on. We were happily informed that she has been a perfect angle in the home so far. She was even excited to see us again, lavishing kisses on me and nibbling my chin,(Cheekaleeka not the adopter) as though it really was a good home for her and not such a scary place. She will be missed and yet happily missed.

Unfortunately the "long termers" never quite disappear they just keep changing. Our sweet Lady is still here but made some huge improvements since she has been spending lots more time up front with the front desk staff. She is much calmer passing all the dogs to and from her kennel and rarely lunges or barks at them. Before you would have to make sure you had a good grip and strong legs to get our little crazed one past the dogs without her making her way over to one by pulling you. She spends much of her time just laying around and getting petted. Amazing what just longer amounts of company/socialization and relax time can do for a soul. (hmm maybe LOVE IS THE ANSWER)
Coopie has reached long termer status and today our little stress monger was walking with one of our volunteers and I don't know all the details but somehow he got near our other long termer Coraline and in the scuffle he apparantly lost more than his temper but with it some of his scruples as well and he bit. He broke skin which means our little man is on bite quarantine for 10 days. He will need a lot of company during that time since he won't be able to play with his buddies until off quarantine and will not be allowed to be handled or seen by many people. My hope is that he will relax at least a little during this time since he will be away from the rest of the dogs in the general population area and won't have the opportunity to work on those stratagies with no dogs around to arouse him. But smart dogs can go stir crazy a little quicker so I will be spending as much time with my little scamp as possible.
It was very cute as we had a fellow staffer bring his dog and introduce him to Coopie and it was a match made in heaven. They stood on their hind legs and held each other like they were on Dancing With The Stars and took turns mounting each other. I think Coopie may not have felt as much as the other dog did that they were soul mates but they surely enjoyed each other's company.

Our new crew of kids didn't fly out the door as quickly as they tend to do so no new dog shopping for at least another week. We have another escape artist disguised like a beautiful sweet Blonde and Black Shepard who is a sweet sweet boy. One little poodlie mix that I have dubbed Lamby because he looks like a little lamb to me. I am not a huge fan of the poodles but My little Lamby is a cute spaz full of fun and lovins for you. We also have Whitey an albino Chihu mix. Pink little nose and light eyes and is so sweet and shy...until a dog he doesn't like comes by then WATCHOUT he's gonna tell ya what he thinks of that nonesense. My Finny is I think Bipolar. I jest but he is so shy and sweet with you and crawls into your lap all low and shy like but when another dog comes over to weasle in on some loving or gets to close to food he claims as his then up goes that lip and a snarl and a growl are things you would never imagine would come from this shy low creeper. Funny Little creatures. Then we have Beeber our Chihu who LOVEs to play rough with Janie a sweet spazzy probably Chihu pug mix with an under bite and Astin a blonde Chihu that seems to be less than excited to be shacked up with Lamby who seems to want desperately to play with Astin. Only two of the current batch got adopted which with all the cuteness going on is hard to believe.

There was a bitter end to my day today. Other than Coopie having to go on bite quarantine for biting a volunteer today there was another Bite of the day. One of our previous residents who had been homed for a little over a year I believe named Letta, a large mutt that really didn't like dogs and was a handful to deal with especially around them was brought in for euthanasia after biting a friend whom she had met before, on the face and breaking skin in more than one place. It was relayed to me it was an unprovoked attack. Letta was a sweet girl that had escaped the green mile before when she was with us(she had not done any harm while in the facility but was known to get out of control when around other dogs)and soon after had gotten adopted by a couple willing to work on her issues. They have a small child now and understandably no longer feel safe with her around the wee one. I was glad to be there to hold her and tell her I love her as she gobbled up cream cheese happily oblivious to the needle going in and quickly slipped into her permanent slumber with cream cheese on her lips and my I love yous in her ear. I always love to see my kids again but I would rather never see them again than to see them under those circumstances. It's a very tough and sad part of this vocation but fortunately it is not such a common thing. RIP Letta . I'm glad you got to experience what a happy life was like for a bit.