Foxy Roxie the Boxy

I love each and every dog that I take into my care.  It comes with the territory.  Love alone can not heal them, but I don't believe that they can heal without it.  I don't play favorites.  As soon as a dog arrives, they are treated as family and along with the love, are given the same rules and boundaries that the other dogs have.  This is the way we create and keep balance among the group. 

That being said, sometimes a dog comes along that stands out.  You treat her the same, but you can't help but feel a stronger connection.  In this case, that dog is Roxie.  Roxie joins Calista, Lincoln, Winston, and Bella in the elite group of "long-timers." These are the dogs that have been with us several months and become so integrated into our lives, that we forget that they are guests. 

Roxie might just be the most fun dog that we have ever fostered (though you wouldn't know it because of my lack of posts!).  She is a riot.  She is smart and athletic and incredibly sassy.  Although she is one of the "challenging" dogs because she is extremely high energy and has some anxiety issues, we have an outlet for her that we haven't had with the others.  The pool.  She swims every single day.  She can't wait for Jonathon to get home from work to play fetch with her and she will jump in over and over.  I bet she jumps in over 100 times any given weekend.  If nobody wants to play with her, she drops her toys in the pool herself.  She will clear out leaves and bugs too.  And if there is nothing to retrieve, well then she'll just hop from floatie to floatie.   Swimming drains energy like nothing else!  The pool has been a godsend for working with Roxie.  

She has come so far over the summer.  I'm very thankful that she ended up in our home because she had some major issues with the other dogs when arrived.  Behavior that would have tagged her as "dog aggressive" in the wrong hands.  Dog aggressive dogs often end up in boarding (most foster homes have multiple dogs) and their problems only progress there.  She wasn't dog aggressive.  She just wasn't socialized and became overstimulated very easily.  She wanted to interact and play, but play quickly escalated to aggression because she had no self control.  She was young and we knew that with help, she would come around.  And come around she has.  She loves playing with the others and will do so until she has worn both of them out.  She is able to play the extremely rough and loud boxer style play and she never gets out of control.  It would have been quite a shame for her to be mislabeled early on and not been given the chance to have dog friends.

In fact, one of her favorite weeks of the summer was when we she met her new friend, Winston.  He stayed with us while his family was out of state.   It was so great to have him back again!  This was his second time visiting with us since his adoption and he still feels right at home here, which I love.   He and Roxie really hit it off.  They are pretty much exactly the same.  Winston is Roxie, minus the attitude:-)  They were absolutely non-stop for days.  She pouted pretty badly the evening he went home. 

She has had several adoption applications over the summer.  Most were an obvious mismatch from the start.  People are drawn to Roxie because she is a good looking dog but when you begin the evaluation process with them you discover that what they actually want is the exact opposite of Roxie.  She had one local family that got as far as the weekend visit.  They were a fantastic home (with a pool!) and any dog would be lucky to live there.  Unfortunately, their older female boxer hated Roxie.  She was a mild mannered, submissive girl, who had just lost her sibling and was still mourning.  Her energy level was about a 4.  Roxie is a 10+.  So she came back to us.  The family had already fallen in love with her and when I picked her up they gave me a donation in the amount of her adoption fee!   More recently, we found another great potential home in Little Rock with three young boys.  But, they had a kitten that Roxie was just a little bit too interested in so she didn't work there either.  We found that family another dog and they are going to start volunteering for us.  Score!  But still no home for Roxie.  With each hard-to-adopt dog, I go through a period where I think "We will never find the right home for this dog. Sigh."  And then, eventually, the perfect family does come along.  And my heart is inevitably broken. 

When nobody has any energy left to play with her, Roxie runs by herself!

Football game with Winston!  This tug of war went on for an hour.

 

Racing my niece Halle.  Roxie LOVES kids. 

Boo Goes Home

Remember Boo, the adorable deaf boy who stayed with us this spring when his foster mom was traveling?  Well he came back to visit us again.  It' didn't turn out as well this time, as we made the rookie mistake of bringing in an unbalanced male dog into a house with an unbalanced female in heat.  But that's another story.  This story is about Boo's happy ending. 

Boo came to our rescue back in March when his devastated family had to let him go, per Doctor's instructions.  His mom was critically ill with bone cancer.  She was to have no contact with anything that could potentially bring bacteria into the house, including her beloved Boo.  The family had rescued Boo from the only life he had ever known, shelter life, and it killed them to give him up.

I was literally speechless last week when I got a text from the director "Boo's family wants him back."  My heart started pounding instantly.  How could this be true?  It turns out that his mom had been misdiagnosed.  Although she isn't well, she doesn't need to fear infection.  There was a lot of random back and forth partial communication because our director was out of town, as was Boo's foster mom, as was Boo's former "Dad".  I think all of us were holding our breath, anxiously awaiting the outcome.  Then we heard that wasn't going to happen after all.  When a dog is in our rescue as long as Boo has been, everyone becomes attached.  He goes to almost all of the adoption events, so everyone knows him.  And those of us who have gotten to know him well, with all his silliness and quirks, love him dearly. 

So why, after all these months, did Boo not get a single application?  We networked him like crazy!  He has his issues, of course, but so many do, especially the deaf ones.   He is good looking, smart, outgoing, and super sweet.  But nobody showed any interest.  He saw numerous foster siblings come in and then get adopted, leaving him behind.  Although Boo was very loved at his foster home, we all prayed that he would find a forever family.  But it didn't happen. 

Now we know why.  Because Boo had a forever family all along.  He came to us when tragedy found them.  The rescue kept him safe and healthy and his foster mom loved him with all of her heart.  We thought that our job was to find him a new home, but we were wrong.  This time, our job was to let him wait with us until he could return to his true home, to his family.  It was meant to be.  

A tearful reunion happened on Friday night as Boo and his family got back together after four long months apart.  I wish I could have been there.  I am told that everyone was crying like crazy.  The pictures and video were enough to bring on the waterworks for me.  Boo was overcome with joy when they were reunited.  Mom (not my place to share names) was so emotional that she had to step away for a few minutes and gain her composure.  The family is hopeful that having Boo back in their life will improve her health.  Dogs have a way of doing that. 

It's not often that these kinds of story book endings come along, but when they do, it feels pretty amazing.  It seems God had a plan for sweet Boo Boo.  I'm glad I got to play a small part in it.  

Boo talking to me!

Roxy

Roxy, our latest, is a 10-12 month old flashy fawn female.  She is beautiful, smart, and eager to learn and please.  She also thinks that she is the queen bee around here.  She prances around with her perfect exaggerated boxer gait like a champion in a show ring.

 This lovely lady comes to us by way of an independent rescuer in a little town to the north of us.  She is a child of a divorce.  She is healthy and in great physical condition so she was obviously well cared for yet neither person wanted her.  She was dumped off to a lady who is known to take in animals no matter what.  Her intentions are good, but the environment is not (think hoarder).  She has 30 dogs that she tries to keep up with.  Roxy is in heat and would have quickly become pregnant if not removed from that place. 

She is extremely people social and doesn't meet a stranger, as a boxer should be.  However her dog social skills, although improving, are lackluster.  She is by no means dog aggressive, but rather indifferent at first.  She had no idea how to play nicely and anytime she got excited, her attempt turned to mounting and attacking.  We are working with her and although she still prefers the company of people, we encourage (supervised!) play sessions daily.  She has been spotted cuddled up to each of her foster siblings a time or two, although she would never admit it;-)

She also has fairly severe separation anxiety.  Her world was turned upside down and this behavior is often the result.  I'm thinking she was a bed sleeper in her former home because no matter how tired she is, crated or not, she cries and whines for hours some nights being away from us.  I have never had a dog that after a week, wouldn't just rest calmly with the other dogs at night.  She has damaged two crates already.  She comes to work with me every day at this point because she isn't ready for extended crating yet and I don't know what she would do to the house if I left her out.  She will climb or tear down any gate.

Despite her little issues, she has us totally captivated.  She entertains us daily with her unusual favorite activity.  Boxers are not typically swimmers.  Their cropped tails, short hair and dense bodies don't tend to be very buoyant.  More than once, I have seen the myth "all dogs can swim"  disproven.  Whenever we get a new dog that we feel is curious or clumsy enough to fall in the pool, we A) make sure they can actually swim and B) teach them how to get to the stairs to get out should they happen to take a plunge.  One lesson is usually all it takes to ensure that they steer clear.  The experience is apparently so repulsive that never has a dog fallen in twice.  Maybe swimming is instinctual for a retriever, but as for little Roxy, well she just sunk.  The difference between her and every other foster we have had is that she was undeterred.  If we were in the pool, she wanted to be in the pool.  She had no fear and no swimming skills...not a good combination.  It was a fatal disaster waiting to happen. We worked with her, literally teaching her to move her legs and stay afloat.  She eventually started to paddle on her own, looking like a cat flailing around aimlessly.  But over the week, she got more and more graceful in the water.  Now she seems to think she is a Labrador.  She plunges into the water over and over again.  The day Roxy fell in the water changed her life. 

 

 

 

Because she is in heat, she has not been spayed, therefore has not been listed yet.  I think that because of her picture perfect looks, she will attract a lot of attention and get applications quickly once she is. 

Olivia

Most dogs end up with us because they have been neglected, abused, or abandoned.  Because of this, most of them also come with baggage, mental, physical, or both.  But every now and then, a dog like Olivia, our latest foster, comes along.  She and her brother had been in a nice home well loved and well cared for their entire lives.  Life got tough for their "mom" and sadly, she lost her home.  It was a tragic day for her when she had to say goodbye to her two dogs that she had shared her life with for the past 4 years.  Olivia is a middle aged, well behaved, mild mannered, and healthy dog.  She'd never seen the inside of a shelter or known hunger or loneliness.  The odd part was, she didn't fit in very well here.  I guess our house caters more to the troubled souls.  She was a spoiled dog, used to a quiet life.  She was depressed being away from her brother and her home and refused to eat.   Luckily, her time with us was to be short. 

I had a potential adopter that I had approved an application on months ago.  His references were wonderful.  His wish for the "perfect dog" was what held us up.  I appreciated his honesty in what he could handle.  This would be his first dog as an adult.  He admitted that he didn't know how to train a dog and he probably couldn't meet the needs of a dog with issues.  He also hoped for a settled dog, a little older, that wouldn't be bouncing off the walls all the time.  That in itself is a tall order for a boxer!  He'd told me that he was willing to wait for the right dog to come along, no matter how long it took.  I thought of him when I found out that we were getting this pair of dogs, although part of me figured he'd gone elsewhere to find his dog.  Little did I know, he had been following our rescue on facebook all along.  I didn't get a chance to reach out to him before he contacted me.  He too thought that either Olivia or her brother, Harley, might be a great fit for him. 

Olivia was clearly missing her life and after only a day was getting overly attached to me.  She never left my side and snapped at Jax and Dixie when they came near me.  I thought that if she was going to attach herself to someone, it may as well be her new family, if possible.  I'd hate to get her comfortable and then uproot her again.  So, I took her over to meet the adopter, who is only minutes from us.  It was love at first sight.  I came home alone.  Olivia stayed for the weekend.  I picked her up one more time to get her vetted and micro chipped, but she never came back to our house.  It was the fasted adoption I'd ever done. 

Her new family reports that she has finally started eating and coming out of her shell.  She lives with two guys and one of their girlfriends is there most of the time.  They have family and friends over often and everyone just adores Olivia.  She is once again a spoiled, happy girl. 

My May

Each of the last three years, I have done around 40 blog posts.  This year, I'm on track to hit just 16.  My time has been more consumed by work than ever before due to some restructuring of the operation as well as some technology failures.  I spend countless hours staring at my computer leaving me with no desire to log in when I get home.  I hate that I have been neglecting my writing because my blog is very important to me.  It's my memory bank.  I already regret not writing more about Brodie and Gracie (who's antics could have filled weeks of blogging). They were just as important to me as any of my other dogs and yet years from now, I will have less left of them.  I need to make writing a priority again. 

Since Haven left (she is doing wonderfully in her new home by the way) we have had Boo come and go.  Boo has been in our rescue for over 3 months now.  His foster mom went on a 3 week vacation out of the country and instead of boarding, he came to stay with us.  Boo is deaf and has some major issues.  The poor boy spent an entire year in a shelter.  That is both horrendous and miraculous.  Extended shelter life is incredibly hard on any dog, let alone a special needs dog.  The miraculous part is that after all that time, he actually made it out alive.  He was finally adopted and not a year later his adopter became critically ill and poor Boo faced homelessness yet again.  That is when he came to our rescue, along with his little pal, a miniature schnauzer, who was adopted almost instantly.  Boo, like many deaf dogs, struggles with extreme anxiety.  He came to us to work on some training and to learn some dog play manners.  He had only been around females and most of them were small.  His play was quite aggressive.  Dixie loves difficult dogs because it gives her a job.  She got to work on him right away, spending literally hours the first night encouraging play and correcting anything that got out of hand. In the short time he was here, his manners improved incredibly.  Boo's foster mom is new to fostering and I applaud her for not giving up on him.  He is a lot to handle, even for someone with experience.  We offered to keep him, but she absolutely adores him and couldn't wait to have him back.  She asked only for my advice and I sent him back to her with all I could think of.  She swears that she won't adopt him, but only because she is older and she feels he needs someone young.  She says that he will likely outlive her.  She doesn't trust her family with the responsibility of him and doesn't want him to lose another home.  Of course, our little rescue family would make sure that he always had a good home, but I understand and respect her decision.  She even decided to foster another dog so that Boo would have a companion.  Anxiety issues aside, what an amazing temperament he has.  He was awesome with Livi, my 2 year old niece.  He was gentle and adored the attention she covered him in.  I don't often recommend deaf dogs to families with small children, but Boo Boo is an exception to the "rule". 



Handsome Boo Boo!

Spending time with Livi. 

We also got a special visitor over Memorial Day weekend.  Bella!  Oh, and she brought Jen with her;-)  This was the first time that we have had a former foster back to visit.  Although Bella was with us for 6 months, she had already been gone for 8.  I wondered if she would remember us, the dogs, her former home.  And with certainty, the answer is yes.  She sure did!  It was a fun reunion.  Dixie went absolutely crazy, to the point of obsessing.  (Of all the fosters, Bella's departure was by far the most traumatic for Dixie and I will never forget the mournful howling.  I had never heard her do it before, and I haven't heard it since.)   After the initial excitement, Bella made her self quite at home.  It was neat to see how she remembered little things, like that the best place for hunting is behind the shed and that the robot pool cleaner is her nemesis.  We had a nice long weekend of eating, drinking and relaxing.  Our biggest decisions were whether to lounge on the couch or out by the pool.  It was great!  As you can see by the pictures, the dogs had fun too!  It was just a big blur of white fur when they got to playing. 

Little Bella all tuckered out.

I expect our next foster, Harley, this coming weekend.  It will have been two full weeks of no foster dog in the house, the biggest gap we've had in a long time. 

Golden Oldie

Two senior boxers were found near the interstate in town here.  They were picked up by animal control and brought to the shelter where my good friend works (I say works, because she spends every spare second saving these dogs, but she doesn't get paid. She is an angel on this earth.).  They were an obviously bonded pair.  A male and a female.  Everyone assumed that someone would come for them, that someone was missing these dogs.  But nobody came.  After the "hold" period, he was put on the adoption line.  She, being heart worm positive, was put on the euthanasia list.  This busy shelter does not have the funds or the resources to treat sick dogs. 

Of course, I'd had my eye on that old girl, but we were completely full at the time with several dogs already in boarding in need of fosters.  My friend was able to get an extension on her life and found another boxer rescue willing to take her in if money was raised for her care.  She raised the money and got transport set up for last weekend.  Then sadly, tragedy struck for the receiving rescue when they lost one of their own.   It was a rare occasion in that I was in between fosters.  So, we were blessed with the privilege of caring for her until her rescue is ready for her. 

Haven fit seamlessly into our family.  It's almost as though she has lived all of her years with us.  She is so well behaved and good natured.  Clearly, she was a loved member of a family at some point.  She is well socialized and confident and knows several "commands," (I hate that term) come, sit, down, stay, shake, and catch.  How on earth did she end up out there?  We can't write their history, but can only make guesses.  Did somebody die?  It's the only thing that makes sense in my head.  Although, the senseless happens everyday.  We see owner surrender reasons that just say "too old."  Too old for what? I wonder.  Because we will all be "too old" for something, someday.    I would guess Haven to be between 9-11 years old (which is about the average life span of a boxer).  She is full of lumps and bumps and because of her age, is not a candidate for traditional heart worm
treatment.  Her bark is soft and hoarse.  Her once obviously beautiful brindle coat is now riddled with grey.  Her face is white.  But "too old"?  No way.  She is such a happy dog with plenty of pep left in her step.  She still does boxer wiggles and spins.  She rests a lot, of course, but for a few minutes at a time, she plays enthusiastically with our dogs.  She looks at us with her soft, if slightly hazy, wise eyes and they are so full of love.  She sure isn't "too old" for us.

It's been just a week, but the old lady has stolen my heart.  I don't know how much time she has left, but I wish that she could spend the rest of her days, however many they may be, with our family. The odds of her getting adopted are probably slim, so she will likely be a forever foster in her new rescue.  I'm quite sure she will be well cared for and loved there.  It's a wonderful place, this "boxer ranch".   Still, I'm afraid I will regret letting her go. 
 

 

 

 

 

I wish more people would consider adopting senior dogs.  The time allowed to share with them may be short, but worth it.  I am positive that even if Haven died tomorrow, she would die a happy dog, and I would have had a week of my life made better by her being in it.   

 

 

 

My Grace is Gone



Gracie has found her forever home!  She moved all the way up to north Kansas.  She lives in the country with 16 acres to run around on and burn up all that energy.  She joins two other young boxers that love to play.   There are a bunch of kids in the family that visit regularly too.  Sounds like our girl will stay plenty busy. 

 

We got up at 4am on Saturday and the whole crew piled into the car to meet Gracie's new mom and dad up in Joplin, MO, the half way point.  We were planning to meet at 9:00.  I got a text from them at 8:15 that they were already at the park.  When we got there, she told me that they had been too excited to sleep and were awake and ready to go at 2am! 

 

We visited for a while and when it was time to go, Gracie hopped willingly into their car, more than ready to start her new life.  It's a little easier to let go when they are confident like Gracie.  I knew she'd be fine.  She is the definition of happy and always up for anything.   

 

I got a text that afternoon from the rescue director.  It said "Thank you so much for all you and Jonathon did for Gracie.  I know you two were her only hope in ever getting a home."  Although I don't think that is necessarily true, it was very nice to hear.  This is why we take the ones that nobody else wants to try.  She is a wonderful dog.  She just needed some guidance after a rough start at life. 

 

 

Gracie's new family