The Humanity in Animal Rescue

I volunteer for an animal rescue in Oklahoma. Rainbow Bridge Can Wait is a tremendous organization staffed by dedicated and generous people, particularly women and families. These women devote much of their time coordinating transportation of surrendered, abused, neglected and abandoned dogs and moving them from deplorable conditions into loving and nurturing homes. The team of women also coordinate adoption events, several times a month in fact, bring more foster families on the team, and go out and perform the rescues. The stories I hear about the conditions which many dogs find themselves is heartbreaking to say the least, but Rainbow Bridge Can Wait truly, humanely and compassionately offers new hope into the lives of their companion animals.

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of helping out Rainbow Bridge in their rescue efforts by meeting a dog owner who was looking to surrender his companion animal. After reading the last sentence, judgement or ridicule often come to mind to try to understand what would make someone surrender their pet. Questions like “How can anyone do that?” “How come they couldn’t make it work?” often come up for people who are looking from the outside. We are left creating a story about these people we know nothing about in order to understand a chain of events and many times we get it wrong. We come up with declarative statements saying things like “I’ll never make that kind of decision”, “I’m glad that’s not us”. We, like the owner who surrendered his dog, created bonds with their companions and for years foraged an everlasting relationships with them. In some instances, life takes a detour and we are left making a decision on something we never imagined having to do so in the first place. In my limited scope of helping with an animal rescu’s work, I saw the pain and heart wrenching sadness in the dog owner’s eye while he was saying goodbye to his “Buddy”. I couldn’t help, but have tears fall for this family. The loss of a loved one is so great and witnessing someone say goodbye to someone or some pet they love is a precious moment and one where an outsider like me can develop a deeper understanding of the complicated situations people find themselves. 

Even with profound sadness and despair found in loss, there is also the glimmer of light in the next moment for the continued journey and the new opportunities which present themselves when we least expect them. I have the utmost gratitude for the animal rescues. They present a different alternative than an animal shelter. “In 2008, roughly 3.7 million pets were euthanized according to American Humane Association. Animals, like senior dogs, pit bulls and fearful dogs to name a few often get overlooked if animal shelters do adoption events and are most often euthanized. Animal rescues, like Rainbow Bridge Can Wait offer a different solution. They offer a new opportunity for many companion animals. They ensure dogs receive vaccinations before they are adopted out, rehabilitation of behavior issues and placed in loving foster homes before adoptions. All of this work requires support from the community. Many, if not all local rescues are non profits and they struggle day to day in finding monetary donations, food donations, people donating their time in walking companion animals during adoption events, becoming a foster family or even helping out at the rescue for those animals who are not able to be placed yet in a home. I believe we all have responsibility in caring for abandoned, neglected and abused animals. We all need to speak up for them and be the voice of the voiceless.

I urge all readers in taking some sort of action either find out about your local animal rescues, donate time, money or other resources to them, volunteer in walking the dogs in the shelters or help out a loose pet find their owners. Be the difference 🙂

Group Training Classes

I’m excited about receiving my AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator credential in January. Just in case you were wondering, AKC stands for American Kennel Club. They are the entity who developed and award people with their dogs a certificate after successful passing of the AKC CGC test. I decided in pursuing the evaluator credential after going through the Therapy Dog training class with Paws with Love. Bernie earned his CGC and I thought, I understand the ways in teaching the behaviors necessary for the exam and I’ve successfully instilled the training with Bernie, so let’s apply! I can now, in addition to the AKC CGC, I can ‘officially’ test people and their pups on the AKC Community Canine and AKC Urban Canine.

I’m also happy in sharing I’ve become a member of Paws with Love (Paws With Love) and have offered my dog training services for their group classes. You can even see a picture of Bernie and my graduating Therapy Dog class 🙂 Their classes begin tonight, so I can’t wait sharing my experiences with group training!

   
 

Christmas Continued with Katie and Pippa

Ok, so I’m way behind in getting the second part of Katie and Pippa meeting and also staying with Jack and Bernie over Christmas. Now, with a bit of time on my hands and my mental notes of how we had a successful few days together, I put my thoughts to virtual paper and will explain how we enjoyed our holiday fight free!

The first things first, initial greetings for sure set the tone for how things will go. My sister and I were intentional with breaking the greeting down into manageable and easy steps. As a look back, we had each dog meet each other individually on leashes. We each have good insights into our dogs and their stress responses. For instance, I know Jack gets wound up, so we took time and decreased distance only when he wasn’t pulling. When he did we moved away. This helped him use up some of that extra energy at the same time, he looked to me for my lead and direction (what you want!). We did the same thing for Bernie. Bernie’s response in stressful situations is to mostly flee. Bernie also freezes. As you dog lovers know, dog’s who freeze under stress, this could lead to a bite or a fight if the stress isn’t removed or if Bernie isn’t walked away. Bernie and I practiced this around both Katie and Pippa. Bernie responded better and he seemed more relaxed, so we all moved inside.

The next part of the process of integrating them, was vigilant observation of body language. What I mean by vigilant isn’t standing and staring at them because that would escalate their behaviors. They stayed in the same area, they had immediate access to the backyard and any close quarters were quickly redirected by happily calling them over to us. I made sure Bernie had an escape route, so he didn’t feel pressured to ‘hang out’ with them right away. He’s a bit more a slow to warm up type of dog,  I can totally appreciate his interest in taking time. On the flip side, Jack is an in your face, let’s be friends type of dog, which isn’t received well by some other dogs, so I watched him for any over exuberance in greeting, paying too much attention to either Katie or Pippa or even high energy play which can be overstimulating for a new play group. I observed tail movements and body language. I quickly interrupted play between any of the dogs and kept the atmoshphere low key. In talking with Aileen, she knows Katie is a buzz kill. She quickly interjects herself and helps end any play between a dog and a person if she’s around. Aileen knows all too well how some innocent fun Pippa may be having, Katie acts on ending it right away. In the past, this led to some serious fights between Katie and Pippa and a trip to the emergency vet. We made sure this didn’t happen. Knowing, observing and responding to body language was the necessary component in making the pups feel comfortable in either a new environment or with unfamiliar people and dogs in their home.

The second day, things really settled in. I contribute most of the success of this day to the 10 or 11 mile run Eddie and I did with the Bears. We are training for a marathon and Jack and Bernie have increased their mileage with us, so 10 miles wasn’t out of the ordinary for them. I must say, the rest of the day, the atmoshphere in my home was just chill. The four pups minded themselves and didn’t get into each other’s way and respected personal space. The key ingredient on this day was exercise. Exercise burned off their energy and Jack and Bernie were low key and relaxed. This type of mindset also allows them an opportunity to experience unfamiliar things at a low threat level therefore makes them feel ok about something new happening.

Finally, we made sure all feedings were done separately, no toys were left out and all Christmas present opening happened under close supervision in separate areas. Our dogs perceive these events as more intense. As a situation is perceived by a dog to be more excitable, the excitement can flip like a light switch and the energy can become more aggressive leading to a dog fight. We kept with our goal of associating all things happening with pleasure and positivity. Even by the end of Katie and Pippa’s time here, for a brief moment in time, Jack gave a few play bows and engaged Katie in a game of chase 🙂 

I look forward to our next Christmas with the Girls!